Hunter's Storyby HoratiojonesChaptersHello World, Hunter Says Hello -Chapter OneBrand New Day-Chapter 2What To Do With Scootaloo-Side ChapterWhat is Love?-Chapter TriI'm Howling at the Moon-Chapter QuatroAnd Sleeping in the Middle of a Summer Afternoon-Chapter TwoHello World, Hunter Says Hello -Chapter OneLuna was dozing watching her night sky, while contemplating the way her day had gone, how she had woken up in the morning in the middle of a lake, with her wings strapped down and a magical stopper placed on her horn, before having to suck it up and swim in the frigid cold lake, and enter her and her sister’s castle, dripping wet and cold. By the time she had located her sister, finding her in one of the lesser used towers of the afore mentioned castle, she had calmed down slightly, but not enough to stop herself from throwing a large vat of honey on her sister and then throw feathers on her. This caused the two to begin a pillow fight that lasted hours, and only ended when both found themselves unable to see, because of the amount of feathers spread throughout the room. Luna chuckled, remembering her day and smiled, she had been so enjoying it, when she had realised it was time to raise the moon, and had done it, while feeling almost regretful for having to stop her fun, yet looking at her night now, she was happy she realised, and content. Right up till the moment of the explosion, right in the middle of the Canterlot gardens. Twilight awoke that morning to Spike shaking her vigorously, waving a recently received scroll in her face, which on closer inspection, said “Dear Twilight Sparkle, We have found something unknown, and wish to use your considerable abilities in scientific study to help us understand what has occurred, also please bring Spike with you to Canterlot, as we believe having a similar aged companion may help us communicate with the unknown in question, also if you could please bring your friend Fluttershy, as we have been told of her abilities with animals, we will have a coach sent to you in an hour, please be ready. Yours sincerely Luna and Cellestia P.S. Prepare yourself, he is utterly adorable-Luna” “That’s strange” Twilight thought, but then Spike told her that he had received the message 15 minutes ago, and she only had 45 minutes to, have breakfast, get Fluttershy, and prepare to be in the company of royalty and so any thoughts on what might have occurred where taken from her mind, as she was distracted by other things. 45 minutes later found Fluttershy, Spike and Twilight, standing outside Ponyville library, as two royal guards pulled up in front of them, Twilight and Spike entered the coach, while Fluttershy shook with fear as Twilight had only told her that her expertise with wild animals was needed, and so she was very afraid of what she might be about to meet. After a few minutes of Twilight and Spike looking at her expectantly, she boarded the coach and they set of for Canterlot Castle. An hour later they landed on the nursery tower of the castle, which to Twilights knowledge had not seen use since her own early days of studying under Cellestia’s tutelage. The trio of friends found both princesses waiting expectantly for them, and so they hurried of the coach, then the guards flew of back to the garage. After a quick exchange of hellos, the all entered the nursery where they were surprised to find a small hairless ape, who was standing throwing a ball against the wall, looking for all the world to not even care that he was surrounded by brightly coloured, talking ponies, but was rather concentrating on his game of personal catch, much like that which Steve Mcqueen entered in The Great Escape, although the child only knew the game from watching Chicken Run. However once Luna cleared her throat, the child looked over at the 4 ponies and a dragon, his eyes running over the three newcomers, when they finally alighted on the Spike, who was last, they opened in surprise, the child cried, “it’s, a dragon, can I play with him, please, Luna, pretty please” his excitement causing him to lisp slightly, and, not waiting for a response, he threw his ball at Spike, who moaned “ow” when he caught it, with his face. The child looked scared at this and started begging for the dragon not to burn him with his fire, at which point the five chuckled, as they knew Spike would never do such a thing. Luna began talking explaining the situation “he arrived him this morning, after his arrival caused a huge explosion in the garden’s centre square, where some policeponies found him sitting in the middle crying, completely unscathed, and asking for his daddy, as you can tell he is related to monkeys, but is vastly more intelligent than one. He has lived for 10 and half years, which is apparently very little, when compared to his father’s supposed age of 40, which has led us to believe that his species, which he claims are called hu-mans, age at the same rate as ponies such as yourselves, as to what brought him here, apparently his father was some form of scientist, investigated in finding other dimensions, this was all we could find out about this. Oh, and also, his names hunter, and he’s very hungry, because we don’t know what he eats, apart from that it isn’t hay or flowers, we haven’t tried anything else yet”. Fluttershy cried out at this and wandered over to the child, who had been nodding his head during the speech, as if to bolster that it was correct. She asked “hunter would it be alright if you could please show me your teeth, if that’s alright with you”, the child nodded and opened his mouth wide, showing both canines and molars, which slightly surprised Fluttershy, but, having dealt with omnivores before, she turned around and said “he is omnivorous, so I would try feeding him fish, if you could find any”, Luna immediately called for a servant and requested some of the fish they kept for when Griffin dignitaries visited. Throughout all of this Hunter looked at Spike expectantly, as the dragon now held his ball in his four clawed hand, Spike through the ball back and Hunter caught it, they did this a few times and then started bouncing it against the floor and walls of the room, laughing whenever the other didn’t catch it. So enthralled where they with their game, they didn’t realise when the adult ponies in the room began looking at hunters stature, as he was standing up straight, rather than the slight stoop that all known monkeys had, Twilight decided to figure out the intelligence level of the human, and so told Spike and Hunter to stop playing, which caused them both to complain. Twilight started asking him maths and equestrian questions, finding that his level of intelligence was only slightly above average to that of a pony of similar age. With the questioning done, Cellestia asked the question on everyone’s mind “what now”, and all but the one who said it where surprised when Fluttershy said “I’ll take him, at least, if that is okay with the princesses” when they agreed, arrangements were made for her to receive money for looking after him, and that she would legally adopt him as her son, the five seeming to realise that as they had never heard of this happening before, it was unlikely that Hunter would be able to return home, and that they should just wait and see what happened, with Twilight helping with the responsibilities of raising an unknown sentient creature. After these arrangements were made, Hunter’s fish arrived, grilled, at which point he dug in voraciously, somewhat surprised when no one offered nor told him, to use a knife and fork, happy that she had found something he ate, Fluttershy smiled, and said “I think everything will be fine, and it seems he should be able to learn at the Ponyville school” and nodded at this, looking at the others for confirmation, and when finding it smiling wider. Twilight was surprised by how assertive her good friend was acting, but decided that it had something to do with motherly feeling that Hunter seemed to be causing in her, she looked at her mentor, who was looking at Hunter with a mix of confusion, as well as, surprisingly sadness, Twilight noticed this and motioned to her teacher, that she wanted to talk outside. Once outside, she asked her long standing friend what was wrong, and was surprised when it was a confirmation of what she herself had been thinking “I'm just sad for him” Cellestia said “either he comes from a society which uses children in experiments, or something has gone seriously wrong, I would like you to slowly question him over the next few weeks, while whatever occurred is still fresh in his mind, as I would like to establish what occurred in his world”. Twilight agreed too and they re-entered the room, which had descended into madness when they had left, with an impromptu game of tag occurring with Fluttershy flying away from Luna, who was carrying the young human in her hooves, while Spike hid behind a small cot in the room, all with huge smiles on their faces. When everyone had calmed down, Hunter decided to spring a large question that was on his mind, “why isn’t anyone wearing clothes?” The rest of occupants looked surprised at this, wondering why the child thought this was a formal occasion, but after questioning Hunter, they found that on his home planet, called either Australia, or earth, depending on how you formed your question, they learned that as they did not have fur, the humans continually wore clothing, and Hunter had not mentioned this before because it was a particularly warm day, and he had decided that if no one else was wearing clothes, why should he, even if they were ponies and he was a human. Smiling they told him that Fluttershy would be taking him to her home as he would have to go to school, Hunter then asked a question everyone hoped to avoid “but when can I go home” he asked in a semi pleading, semi questioning tone. Fluttershy approached him, a sorrowful look on her face and said “Hunter I'm sorry to say but I don’t think you’re ever going to see your home again”. Hunter looked surprised at this but eventually smiled saying “so I get to play with my new friends for ever, yay”, the rest of them smiled sadly, agreeing with him, but all thinking about the day he would realise what this meant. Twilight eventually decided it was time to return to Ponyville, and to make preparations for Hunter’s new life, and so her, Fluttershy, Spike and Hunter bid the princesses farewell, and promised to keep them informed of how everything was going. When Hunter came to say goodbye, he hugged Luna tightly, and thanked her for being her friend thatday, as he put it, “had been having a very bad day until she showed up and made everything better”. Luna giggled lightly, happy to be seen as just a nice pony doing a nice thing, rather than with all the negative connotations she was used to her presence bringing. On the coach ride back to Ponyville, hunter sent the ride looking out the window, screaming with delight at flighting through the air. When they reached Ponyville, Twilight told the guards to drop of Fluttershy and Hunter at Fluttershy’s home, while she shopped for thing that Fluttershy now needed, if she were to raise a child, and to also tell Rarity to come to Fluttershy’s house, to make Hunter some new clothes, as she realised that, at the very least, he was going to need clothes at night, because of his hairless body. While Twilight was doing this, Fluttershy was introducing Hunter to her animal friends, who were all waiting patiently for her to feed them. Hunter asked if he could help, and was somewhat surprised when, not only was he allowed to help, but he was also allowed to cut up carrots with a knife. So shocked was he with this responsibility, he did it extremely carefully, and apparently perfectly, because once he had presented it to Angel, the small bunny went over and hugged his leg, as if deciding that, because of his chopping skills , the young human deserved his friendship. Fluttershy saw this and smiled, she had been worried about Angel’s jealous nature, but saw that the two were getting along famously. Twilight arrived later that night, with a new bed, some reading materials for children, an anatomy of omnivorous mammals’ book, and Rarity, in tow, having dropped of Spike at the library, deciding he had had enough excitement for one day. Rarity and herself stumbled upon a picture of a perfect family, with Angel, Hunter and Fluttershy all playing Monopony, with Angel winning but only by a small margin, and a small salad placed in front of them. Rarity, generous as ever, found herself at a loss when seeing the human, not knowing whether to go over and hug him or to cringe in fear because of his strangeness, but eventually decided to hug him, because of the way her good friend Fluttershy was acting around him. She walked up to Hunter and introduced herself, much surprised when the young child bowed to her and said “my dear Rarity, it is a boon upon my life to have made your acquaintance, I do so hope that you and myself can be friends” and then bursting out laughing, with Fluttershy doing the same, if a bit quieter, as they had planned the little welcome before her arrival. Rarity decided to ask the child what he usually wore, and was somewhat surprised when he said jeans, a t-shirt, and leather runners, Rarity knew what leather was, but also knew that it was a material that’s use was forbidden, most ponies cringing at the thought of wearing a dead animal. After hearing Hunter say this, Twilight took it upon herself to ask Hunter about the flora and fauna of where he came from, first she asked if there where ponies where he came from, pleasantly surprised when he answered in the affirmative, she asked them what they were like, but was soon sad that she had, as Hunter explained the differences between this new lands ponies, and those from where he came. He said “well there usually white or black or brown or a mix of that and there a lot bigger than you guys, at least 10 times the size, (although he said this in such a manner that Twilight though he must be exaggerating), and I rode one all by myself at a farm, it was lots of fun, but they didn’t talk which would have been cool”, this shocked Twilight, who immediately asked about all of Equestria’s other sentient creatures, and was somewhat shocked when she was told that they either did not appear to have sentience, or did not exist at all, she then asked how Hunter knew about dragons, which led to him telling her all about his favourite video game, ‘SPYRO’. This shocked the rest of the rooms occupants to silence, as they struggled to understand a world so different to theirs, but eventually Rarity snapped them out of it, deciding to take Hunter’s measurements, and designing him some clothes, while Fluttershy and Twilight asked him about his family, at which point Hunter released a bit of a bombshell, when he admitted “my mum passed away last year from cancer, but my dad says that he will find me a new mother, who will love me just as much, I just didn’t realise that this meant he would go away to” and then he started crying, all the mares found themselves, almost instinctively running over to the child, to offer him the consolation, Fluttershy was somewhat surprised when Angel also joined in the hugging, but took it in her stride and hugged what she realised now really was, for all intents and purposes, her new son. Eventually hunter stopped crying and said he was hungry. Fluttershy said she would cook them all something to eat, and would give hunter some of the fish that a friendly cat caught from a nearby pond whenever she was looking after meat eating animals. Rarity and Twilight meanwhile, were talking about how to introduce Hunter to the rest of the town, eventually deciding that a Pinkie Pie party would probably be the least threatening, to either group, way of introducing a new sentient creature to their neighbours. Fluttershy soon finished cooking, giving Hunter vegetables and fish, while she and her friends had daisy sandwiches. Her friends told her their plan, and she agreed after thinking it over, and they made plans to introduce Hunter to their friends tomorrow, and have a party at the end of the week to introduce him to the rest of the village, with Rarity saying she would ask her sister and her friends to come to, as they were almost exactly the same age to Hunter. The friends decided to wrap it up when Hunter started yawning loudly, rubbing his eyes to stay awake, but fighting and obviously losing a fight with the sandman. Twilight set up Hunter’s new bed in the living room, remarking that Fluttershy would have to get some builder ponies to put an additional room on her house. Then Rarity and she left, promising to meet there in the morning for breakfast, along with their friends and the cutie mark crusaders. Fluttershy tucked Hunter in, and then went off to her bed room, where she settled into her own bed, and deciding to read a romance novel, to take her mind of the events of the day, a she was so excited, she hadn’t woken up that morning expecting to become a mother, but now she was. Then she heard a knock on her door, when she said come in, Hunter walked in and said “please don’t be mad at me, but I'm really scared and I don’t want to be by myself, can I sleep with you”, Fluttershy smiled and nodded, shuffling slightly to the left so that Hunter could fit in her bed, when he crawled in he hugged her again, which she returned willingly, and then he rolled onto his side and started falling asleep, but not before asking “Fluttershy, are you my new mother”, Fluttershy whispered “yes”, to which hunter just nodded happily and dozed off. Fluttershy turned off her light, and smiled, her last word going through her head. Brand New Day-Chapter 2Hunter woke, yawning loudly, he reached up to place a hand over his mouth, when he encountered a large, moving mass of fur, Hunter screamed, causing the mass to stir, and then say “Hunter shh, it’s going to be alright”. Hunter recalled the events of the previous day, and smiled, as he now remembered that his new mother had allowed him to sleep in her bed. The human child then proceeded to get up, scratching his face as he did so, after having given his new mother a big “good morning” hug, relishing being able to do so. Then Hunter felt the morning chill, and shivered quite noticeably, before grabbing a blanket of the nearby bed and wrapping himself in it. He stood stretching as Fluttershy got out of the bed, slipping quietly out from under the covers and joining him at looking around her room, the sunlight streaming in thanks to Celestia, painting everything in a bright, cheerful light. Hunter looked at Fluttershy, who was smiling radiantly back at him, her small stature for an adult, in his experience at least, made him smile, as he realised that it would not be long before he was more than equal to her in height, which was always a goal of his, to be taller than authority figures, no matter how sweet and caring they were. A knocking woke Hunter from his thoughts, so he wandered down to the door of his new home, greeting Angel, as he passed the rabbit’s bed. Upon opening the door he saw his new dragon friend Spike looking at him, while panting loudly, having, it appeared, just run all the way from his house. When Spike got his voice back, he said “everypony that Twilight thinks you should meet is coming in an hour, where going to have a picnic in the park nearby, you’ll get to meet all of her friends, as well as the cutiemark crusaders, who are always good for some fun, but anyway twilight got me to bring you these”, and produced some clothes from a bag he was carrying, the clothes matching what Hunter had described to Rarity the previous night almost perfectly, except the shoes, which he saw were made out of cotton, and were very similar to Vans, a brand of shoes he had seen lots of older kids where. Lacking any modest, mainly as Spike was already naked in front of him, he dropped the blanket he had been using for warmth, and placed the clothes on, glad when the fit well. Spike then said “do you wanna play Frisbee”, and took a plastic disk out of the same bag, to which Hunter nodded eagerly in response, before thinking and saying “yeah definitely, but I think I might have to ask my mum first”, Hunter smiled inwardly, happy to have been able to call Fluttershy his mum in front of somebody else. Spike just looked confused, right up to when Fluttershy walked up to the two boys, and said “sure Hunter, you can play with Spike, just remember to not get to dirty”, at which point a look of comprehension appeared on his face, as he realised who Hunter had been referring to, and smiled, happy his new younger friend was happy. They both walked out to Fluttershy’s garden, where Spike threw the Frisbee to Hunter who caught it deftly in his hand, on seeing this Spike said “oh Celestia, you have no idea how good it’s going to be having someone else with thumbs to play with”, they chatted like this for a little while, describing their worlds to each other. When Hunter asked “do you guys have guitars here” he was very excited when Spike nodded in the affirmative, and explained “I’ve been playing since I was six, my dad taught me, but I was worried you guys didn’t have them here”. Spike told him about Ponyville’s music store, which he was sure would be able to provide him with a guitar, and was about to ask him whether he thought Fluttershy would let him get a guitar, when lo and behold, who should walk out of her house, but that very mare. Hunter turned to his new mother and said “do you think I could get a guitar, I played with my dad all the time, and he said I was good”, Fluttershy replied “yes, that should be fine, and I'm sure we could find somebody to continue your lessons”. After she said this, Twilight and Rarity arrived, with lots of ponies hunter didn’t know, three fillies, and three adult mares, all six of them stopped chatting, and just stared at Hunter, who meanwhile stared at a, what he thought was very pretty, orange and purple Pegasus, having only given the rest of them a quick glance. The six new pony’s thoughts were summed up by one of the fillies, a yellow coat one with a big red bow on her neck, who said “what in tarnation is that Fluttershy, and why have yah got it all dressed up, frou frou like”. Hunter was insulted, fairly sure that he had just been called an animal, by the smaller pony, so he took it upon himself to introduce himself to them, and exclaimed “why, I am human, an alien creature, who has been stranded in this strange land, (he was pretty much stating word for word, the way an astronaut had introduced himself to little green men on mars, in a book his father once read him) all alone, I wear clothes, because, unlike you, I have not got a coat, and so require it for warmth, and protection”, and bowed respectively, then he and spiked started giggling, which caused the rest of the group to start laughing, surprised by the way this unknown creature had introduced himself. Rarity meanwhile, was looking on with a smile, quite happy with how her good friends new son presented himself to others, Twilight however was somewhat surprised, unable to understand that it was a joke, she started to think that this was how he always acted, and yesterday he had just been suffering from shock. Twilight’s thoughts were soon proved wrong, when the young boy threw his Frisbee, missing Spike in a obviously purposeful manner, and instead hitting Scootaloo, who looked in confusion at the disk which had just hit her, but then Hunter cried out, “tag your it”, and ran off, with Spike in tow, The CTC looked after them and then quickly gathered in a group and whispered quietly to each other, before disbanding and shouting “Cutiemark Crusader Human Hunters, Yay” and ran after the rapidly fleeing human and dragon. The adult ponies watched this with some amusement, before, finally, Applejack said “Fluttershy, I think you have some explaining to do, to which Fluttershy agreed, and told them all of what had transpired yesterday. As her friends listened closely, when they heard that Hunter was now her legally adopted son, they all reacted differently. Pinkie Pie, needless to say, immediately started talking about a party; too introduce Hunter to the town. Applejack just nodded, accepting it as something Fluttershy would do. Rainbow Dash however acted differently, saying “so you just met, and you adopted him, just like that?”, Fluttershy responded “yes”, to which Rainbow Dash said “look, you’ve given me a lot to think about, I’ll introduce myself to him at the party”, and she flew off. When Rainbow Dash flew off, the friends remarked at how strange this was, except for a certain Stetson wearing Earth Pony, who was fully aware of what Rainbow Dash, was talking about, and where she was probably going. The five mares wondered over to the meadow in which the five children were playing chasey, with Hunter now running after the three fillies, and spike lying exhausted on the ground. The adults gathered around a picnic basket that Pinkie had brought, filled with baked goods from the bakery, Cupcakes, cakes, muffins, and all other baked deliciousnesses, as well as some warm hot chocolate. Hunter turned on seeing this display and ran over to the picnic basket, and went to Fluttershy, saying “mum can I please have a cupcake, it’s for scientific reasons” while smiling in a reassuring manner, “scientific reasons?” she replied. “Yeah, I figure that I should probably find out if you make them like they do where I came from” he responded, in what he hoped was a knowing way. Fluttershy said “ok” so he grabbed the nearest chocolate flavoured desert, and ran back to his friends, holding his cupcake in his hand. Her friends all cooed at the adorable manner in how Hunter was really treating Fluttershy, like his mother, but then Rarity spoke up, saying “he is really quite delightful dear, but I fear those citizens with less open mindedness will find it hard to accept him into their society”, to which Fluttershy replied “I guess we really should have that party, what do you think Pinkie Pie”. Turning to her pink friends, who, meanwhile, was setting up her welcome wagon, then Pinkie turned to her friends and said “oh, I'm sure it will be fine, everybody should get along, even that grumpy donkey and everything, just because he’s different doesn’t mean they won’t accept him, I'm sure a lot of them learnt their lesson after what happened with Zecora” and then continued with setting up her wagon. By now the other young creatures, had all seen the food that was on display, and had run over with Hunter, begging for food. Fluttershy asked the three fillies “did you guys introduce yourselves”, to which they shook their heads and turned to Hunter, Scootaloo said “hi I'm Scootaloo, it’s nice to meet you”, then Applebloom introduced herself “it’s awful nice to meet you, your pretty fun for a strange creature” and finally Sweetie Bell introduced herself saying “it brings me great joy to make your acquaintance” in a prim and proper fashion. And then they all sat down, and had cake. Twilight watched this interaction, which gave her some hope for the future, and then decided to see if she could find out any more about where Hunter came from. She asked him “so did you have ponies where you came from”, to which hunter replied, after swallowing a mouthful of cake, “yeah, kinda, we had ponies, but they were a lot bigger than you, and coloured normally, but they didn’t have wings or horns, or both, by the way, whats up with that” what followed was a quick explanation by Twilight, in which she explained, how they all had magic and how they used it differently. Then Hunter asked something that had been nagging him for a while “why do all the adults have tattoos in the same place on their butt”, to which Twilight replied “firstly, it’s called our flank, but anyway, those are our cutiemarks, they tell us what were good at, you only get them once you’ve found out what it is”. Scootaloo was shocked, thinking she knew what this meant, and asked “Hunter, do you mean to say that humans never get their cutiemark, no matter how many things they do”, Hunter nodded his head, and said “yeah, why is that a bad thing”. Fluttershy was worried about where this was going, and so decided to change the subject back to where Hunter came from, and she asked “so Hunter, did they have magic on earth”, hunter shook his head and said “no but our technology was a lot more advanced, and we invented machines that could allow us to fly”, this last part earned a look from pinkie, who was an amateur enthusiast in the area of flight technologies, having created a helicopter-like device that she used to fly through the air. Pinkie then began to sing her welcome song, and then shot tons of streamers into the air, and produced a cake, which said “Welcome to Equestria” on it, from her wagon’s oven. All the ponies, Spike, and Hunter, took a piece, and they all sat on the large picnic rug eating, Spike and Hunter using their fingers to put the cake in their mouths, while the ponies just ate with their mouths. Hunter finished his cake quickly, and watched his new friends eat, then started laughing when Fluttershy looked up at him, as her muzzle was completely covered in cake. The other ponies all looked up at him, all of them with cake all over their face, which just made Hunter laugh louder, before he eventually gasped out “sorry, but watching you guys eat cake is hilarious” and then started laughing again. The others just looked at each other, before realising he was talking about the cake on their face, and started laughing to. After this, Applejack and Pinkie Pie introduced themselves to Hunter, who was throwing the Frisbee with Spike again, while the cutiemark crusaders looked on with utter fascination at how easy they made it look, as the ponies where used to playing the game with their mouths, which made it a lot more difficult. Eventually the group decided it was time to go, so everybody but Twilight and Spike left, with the three girls promising to come over the next day, and Pinkie Pie saying that the party would be three days from now, deciding a surprise party would be a bad idea, as the people who were aware of the party would probably be the most surprised, not Hunter. While Spike and Hunter played Frisbee, Twilight began speaking quietly to Fluttershy, saying, “would you mind if I asked Hunter some questions, I really need to find out what happened with his father”, Fluttershy said “ok, do you want to spend the night, I think if we played a game or something he would be more likely to open up to us, and I'm sure he would love to have Spike sleepover,” she asked hopefully “I have a spare bed, and the couch folds out, so it would be no trouble” she continued. Twilight agreed that it was probably the best idea, so she nodded her head. Meanwhile, Spike and Hunter had begun listening to their conversation, and high fived each other when Twilight said yes, they both looked at their hands after this, having just realised what they had done, before eventually Hunter spoke “that was awesome, I just high fived a dragon”, at which Spike chuckled, and agreed. They walked back to Fluttershy’s house, where Angel was standing out the front, tapping his foot expectantly, then pointed to his wrist, and then to his stomach, Hunter walked into the house and started making the rabbit a salad, and once finished walked out and gave it to him. Hunter walked over to the draw filled with games that Fluttershy had gotten Monopony from the night before, and pulled out Cluedo, surprised again by the similarities between his world and this one. When he turned around, Cluedo in hand, Twilight gasped, while Spike chuckled and explained “that’s her favourite board game, I think it’s mainly because it’s the one that’s least about luck”. Happy that his choice had been right, Hunter placed the game on the floor and began setting it up with Spike’s help. Fluttershy walked over to Hunter, Twilight alongside her, and asked “could you please write down what foods you can eat, I don’t think it would be healthy eating fish and cake all the time”, handing him a piece of paper with a pen on it, Hunter responded, “well actually, I eat most things, in fact, the only thing I can’t really eat, is grass and leaves, the rest, unless its poisonous, is fine, but yeah, some meat would be nice tonight, but I don’t have to have any, it’s just , I think that I can’t just live on fish alone”. Fluttershy and Twilight looked at each other, wondering what they should do, Fluttershy was thinking of the few times she had nursed carnivorous creatures, and how she’d had to find recently killed animals, and take meat from them, while Twilight was thinking about the fact that they knew so very little about the actual act of cooking with meat. Hunter saw the two concentrating on their thoughts and began to believe he had done something wrong, and said “look it’s alright I will eat fish, I'm okay with it,”, Twilight responded “no, it’s fine dear, we just had not really thought about this yet, I’m sure we can think of something, in fact I have an idea, in Canterlot, they have a griffin butcher, who’s customers are all the visiting dignitaries of others countries, I'm sure he could easily supply us with meat, especially if we get the princesses to ask him”. Fluttershy nodded, then realised “Hunter, you eat cooked meat right?” She asked, to which he said “yes”, and Fluttershy continued “it’s just; I don’t think that I can cook meat, the very idea makes me feel sick”. Hunter responded “that’s alright, I can actually cook pretty decently, my dad always said that a person should be able to cook for themselves, so he taught me how, in fact how about tonight I make dinner, and from now on, unless I want something you can eat, I’ll cook for myself”. Fluttershy responded quickly “no you can’t possibly do that, I'm your mother, I should cook for you” but Hunter just reassured her, saying “no it’s fine really, I like to cook, it’ll be fun”. Having sorted out this, Fluttershy relaxed, as it had actually been worrying her since the night before, cooking the fish had really not been easy, as she kept thinking how she was cooking something that had been alive only a small time before, but now she was relaxed. Hunter had walked into the kitchen, and began putting together vegetables for a roast, while cutting up some fruits for dessert, and then he placed the vegetables in the oven. He wandered back into the living room, where he saw Twilight and Fluttershy talking quietly, and looking at him, at which point spike came over and said “they want to talk to you about something serious, but they don’t want to ask, as they don’t want to make you sad”. Hunter nodded, and walked slowly over to them and said “look whatever you want to talk about, I'm okay with, I trust you guys, and if it’s something you need to know, it’s something you need to know”, Twilight responded “Hunter, I'm sorry but I have to ask, what do you remember about what happened with your father”. Hunter looked sad for a moment, but straightened up and said “okay, a few days ago, it was take your kids to work day, at the laboratory my dad works at, and so he had let me come, we were in this big room, filled with machines, when one of them turned on, suddenly, and started shooting around the room, hitting people, it was about to hit me, when my dad jumped in front of me, but he just disappeared and it hit me, and then I found myself in the gardens” the last part about his father he said haltingly, “well your father sounds like a hero, why are you so sad” Twilight asked, noticing Hunter’s saddened demeanour. Hunter said, sitting down, “it’s just, I think my father could have survived if I just moved out of the way, but I didn’t and now he’s gone, and it’s all my fault” and started sobbing. Fluttershy came over and hugged him tightly, and said “no hunter, it wasn’t your fault, it was somepony else’s fault, and even then it was an accident, and besides, sometimes people make mistakes, but when you do, you just have to get over them”, Hunter nodded, still crying but not sobbing any longer. Twilight and Spike joined in, with Spike saying “anyway, if that hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t have a new friend”. They stayed like that for a while, enjoying the comfortable warmth the closeness brought, when Hunter remembered the vegetables, and burst out from the middle of the group hug, raced into the kitchen, and pulled out the vegetables, which much to his surprise, were cooked perfectly. They ate, with everybody commenting on Hunter’s cooking ability, which caused him to blush slightly, before saying “see I told you I could cook”. They all agreed, before finishing the fruit salad he had made. Hunter saw Twilight move the spare bed out of the cupboard and set it up in the living room, with her magic, needless to say, it blew his mind, this being the first time he had seen a unicorn use magic, while everybody else just laughed at his reaction. Spike and Hunter went to bed, while Twilight and Fluttershy went outside, saying they wanted to see the stars, and smiled at each other, as if sharing a joke. Hunter and Spike became suspicious, so they snuck outside, where Hunter gasped loudly, as he swathe unexpected sight before him, Twilight, Fluttershy and Princess Luna, nuzzling each other, with Fluttershy and Twilight either side of Luna. Fluttershy, used to looking after small animals, and therefore always listening out for very soft sounds, heard the gasp and turned around, then said “oh, oh my” and fainted. Second Chapter, Better than the first? Again, first story, still learning, so any advice is good. Plus, I'm pretty happy with how this chapter turned out as it's my main explain each other's worlds chapter, which is why it took me ages, lots of things to decide. If you guys like this chapter say so, I'm thinking of redoing the first, so any thoughts on what is good in either, stuff like that What To Do With Scootaloo-Side ChapterShort sweet chapter, doesn't actually contain hunter, and occurs on the same day as the previous chapter Rainbow Dash flew away from her friends gathering, thinking on what Fluttershy had done, adopting somebody they had just met, merely because they were an orphan. Dash landed on a cloud, lay down, and thought about her own childhood, filled with sadness on how her parents had died when she was a young filly, and how she had grown up in an orphanage all by herself, with no one to help her, all alone. She had realised, along time ago, that the only way to find love was to make everybody happy, and the only way she could think of to do that was to do acts of awesomeness, aweing people into loving and respecting her. No one more so was affected by these acts than her number one fan Scootaloo, who was an orphan, having grown up without her parents after a rogue dragon had killed them as they travelled near Ponyville. Rainbow Dash yawned and continued to think, she knew all this, but still she couldn’t bring herself to do anything about it, she liked Scootaloo, but she just wasn’t sure if she could really be a mother, and so had just decided to be a good role model to her. But Fluttershy’s actions had thrown this idea to the wind, she realised now she was just scared, but what could she do, it wasn’t as if Scootaloo wanted her as a mother, or was it. Then the rainbow maned Pegasus rolled onto her side, and fell asleep. Scootaloo was wondering home, with her friends, thinking on what they planned to do with Hunter, their new friend, and how great it was going to be when he started going to school. She looked up into the sky, and noticed her favourite Pegasus was sleeping on a rapidly dissipating cloud, she shouted out, waking rainbow dash, who looked at her cloud and flew up, narrowly avoiding a very nasty wake up call. She looked to the person who had woken her up, happy to see her friend, but annoyed by the confused feeling she brought up in the older mare, of maternal instincts and loyalty, but also of fear and sadness. She flew down to give her thanks, to which Scootaloo said “no its alright, I'm sure you would have done the same for me”. Noticing how happy Scootaloo was to even talk to her, she came to a decision and said to the rest of the cutiemark crusaders “girls could you give us a minute, I want to talk to Scootaloo about something”, they nodded their heads and continued on. Scootaloo looked at Rainbow Dash, who was looking at her with a expression that the young filly hadn’t seen in a long time, of love. Rainbow Dash said “honey, I want to ask, what did you think of Hunter and Fluttershy’s relationship, would you like something similar”. Scootaloo, gasped on realising what Rainbow Dash meant, and began doing the Yes dance, that she had first seen performed by Twilight Sparkle, when they asked about her cutiemark. Dash looked on in happy amusement, as the purple maned, orange furred Pegasus danced around in front of her, showing to be quite adept at it. When Scootaloo came to her senses, she saw Rainbow on the floor laughing; this caused her considerable sadness as she began to think it had been a prank. She got back onto her Scooter and raced of, eyes filling with tears. Rainbow was shocked by this, she wasn’t sure what she had done wrong, and she just thought that Scootaloo looked so funny, so she had started laughing. She raced after the younger pony, rapidly approaching the grounded Pegasus, who was giving all she had to get away, not even noticing were she was going, but Rainbow Dash did. She was headed towards a cliff that overlooked Ponyville. Rainbow Dash started going even faster, hoping to catch up in time, encountering the wind barrier, which she now looked on as an old foe, she pushed against, and broke through, creating a giant rainboom, the force of which blasted outwards. She flew towards Scootaloo, who was pushed by the rainboom, over the cliff, and started falling; Rainbow Dash reached the edge of the cliff, and dived straight towards the younger Pegasus, who was screaming loudly. She dove, and just as Scootaloo was about to hit the ground, she caught her, and straightened out, racing just above the ground, trying to lose momentum. The younger Pegasus’s beloved scooter, however was not as lucky, hitting the ground with a huge, unexplainable, explosion. Eventually, Rainbow Dash slowed enough to be able to look at Scootaloo, who was looking up at her, her eyes as big as plates, “you saved me, after pulling such a cruel prank, you saved me, why?” she asked. Rainbow alighted on a nearby cloud, and placed the Pegasus down, “firstly, of course I would save you, I'm loyal to my friends, and you just so happen to be one of them, and secondly what prank” she asked confused and angry, with herself or Scootaloo she wasn’t quite sure. “You know, the one where you were offering to adopt me, and then laughed at me when I got excited”, she said, looking at Rainbow Dash with daggers in her eyes. Rainbow Dash trotted over to her younger charge, with an expression of surprise quite clear on her face, saying “Scootaloo, that wasn’t a prank, I honestly want to adopt you, I know how bad it is being an orphan, and just seeing how happy Hunter was today, made me realise just how easily I could give someone I care about the same happiness”. Scootaloo started crying, and sobbed out “you care about me”, to which Rainbow Dash responded, “of course I do Scootaloo, now let’s go see the mayor about me adopting you as my daughter”. She picked up Scootaloo in her arms, and hugged her, then headed towards the mayor’s office. They arrived, landing on the mayors office’s porch, Rainbow Dash opened the doors, while Scootaloo, danced around with excitement. The mayor was sitting at her desk, eating a daisie sandwich, munching quietly, and looking at them with something along the lines of calm acceptance, as if people walked through her 2nd story outside door every day. “Rainbow Dash wants to adopt me”, Scootaloo yelled, bursting with excitement, to which the mayor, pulled a draw behind her open, pulled out a large document, and an ink pad, and then said, “okay, place a hoof print here, here, here, and here, please Rainbow Dash”, pointing at random points on the document. Rainbow Dash complied, dipping her hoof on the ink pad, and then signing the paper, before wiping her hoof on a cloth the mayor provided, the mayor then put her own hoof print on the paper and said “alright she is now your daughter, any clothing or other personal items will be removed from the orphanage by tomorrow. Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo thanked the mayor, and left, Scootaloo in Rainbow Dash’s arms as she flew towards her, or now, their home. Rainbow Dash spent the rest of the day building a partition on to her home, extending it with a new room for Scootaloo, while the younger filly offered directions, more of hindrance than a help, which led too many ridiculous placing’s of walls, beds, wardrobes and other particulars, but all in good fun. They tried to make dinner together, both finding out that the other had absolutely no cooking skills, and so Rainbow Dash flew to a nearby Prance patisserie and got them both croissants, and hot chocolates, before bringing it back and eating it with her new daughter. They went to bed, with Scootaloo sleeping in her new cloud bed, while Rainbow Dash watched her sleep for a little while, before going to bed herself. Scootaloo woke the next morning, refreshed and happy, and got out of bed, wandering into Rainbow Dashes room; she looked for her new mother, but couldn’t find her. She walked into the kitchen, were she found a note, which said “good morning Scoots, I’m sorry I couldn’t be there to see you wake up on your first day with me, but I have to work, have a good day go play with your friends, I’ll see you later, maybe we could get lunch together, love Rainbow”. Scootaloo was a little sad, but she knew people have to work, so she understood, and besides, she always had a good time with her friends, maybe they should go see Hunter, and bring spike along she thought. She opened Rainbows front door, when she realised, she couldn’t leave, as she wasn’t a good enough flyer yet, and with a big breath she did the only thing she could think of, and yelled “RAINBOW DASH” Rate Review do what ever you want do What is Love?-Chapter TriFluttershy lay on the ground her two marefriends looking worriedly at her, Luna poked her lightly, which made Fluttershy stir and say “no, please, no, I just want to lay here and die”. Luna looked over at the young human she had met the day before as well as Spike, both of whom were looking very embarrassed. Hunter was the first to speak, scratching his head in a self-conscious manner saying “I’m sorry for stumbling on you like this, and for acting so shocked, it’s just where I come from, it’s usually just females and males who kiss each other, and even then it’s usually just between two”. Luna and Twilight blushed vividly at this, while behind Hunter, Spike face palmed, and started speaking saying “we really have to tell you more about how this place works, anyways, mares kiss and stuff all the time, as theirs a lot less stallions than mares in Equestria, so not everybody would have love, unless they looked at their own gender, and love between three people is not that unusual, although there is usually at least one stallion involved”, he said, as if reciting something he had been told repeatedly, and, judging by the look he gave Twilight, who went even redder than before, he was quoting her. Hunter nodded “okay, cool, um, whys she lying on the ground then” he continued. Twilight cleared her throat and said “oh she’s just naturally shy, and didn’t want anybody to know about our relationship, I believe it’s because dating a princesses in a trio is unusual, no matter how you look at it, but I love them both, and Luna loves us both, and Fluttershy loves both of us, equally”. Luna understanding more than she let on, then said “Hunter, please understand Fluttershy loving us doesn’t mean she won’t love you any less”. Fluttershy was listening to her marefriends talk about her and got up, her love’s words giving her strength. Fluttershy turned to her son and said “honey, I love you, I really do, I haven’t known you long, but in that time, you have shown yourself to have an inner strength that I am very jealous of, but I love these two differently, and besides, you can easily look on them as substitute mothers” to which Twilight and Luna nodded their heads. Hunter laughed and said “ok cool, just please understand, I love you Fluttershy, anything you do is alright with me, so please don’t keep secrets from me, it hurt a little, I’ll be honest”, Fluttershy gasped at this, and said “oh no, I'm so sorry for hurting you, I didn’t even think, oh please forgive me”, and raced over and hugged him. Hunter said quietly “of course I forgive you, now I'm going back to bed” and having said so, slowly freed himself from his mother’s grasp and walked back inside with Spike, who once they were in the house, started laughing his head off. Luna looked at her two marefriends, and said “that went alright, maybe we can tell everybody now”, causing Fluttershy to faint, again. Twilight and Luna kissed each other, and then looked over at their third, giggling, they dragged her to the nearby meadow; to continue were they had stopped when Hunter interrupted them. Hunter awoke the next day, refreshed, to the smell of cooking eggs; he raced into the kitchen, where he found Luna making scrambled eggs. Seeing the regal mare making what he could only assume was breakfast, made Hunter laugh, causing Luna, who was concentrating strongly on her task, to drop the pan she was holding with magic in shock, and turn around, to see Hunter with an extremely bemused expression on his angelic face, his smile filling most of it. Luna looked at him seriously and said “thy does no not, what thy has done” and picked up a nearby fly swatter, and began chasing the young human through the house, while both laughed madly. Needless to say, this activity soon woke the rest of the household, with both of them getting yelled at by the three others, while they just giggled. Hunter smiled when he saw his new friend, as he had thought of something fun they could do that day, and walked over to him and said “morning Spike, do you wanna go fishing today”, to which Spike replied, rubbing sleep out of his eyes, “fishing?”, Hunter gasped, and said “you know fishing, where you catch a fish with a rod, wait, don’t tell me you guys don’t fish”. Spike looked at his friend, slightly more aware and said “nah, apparently griffins and stuff usually just catch fish with nets, what’s a rod”; Hunter said “it’s a stick with some string on it and a hook on the end of the string”. Spike nodded and said “sure sounds like fun, I'm willing to give it a go”. Suddenly there was a rapid knocking on the door, Fluttershy trotted over to it, and opened it, somewhat surprised when she was immediately accosted by a small purple and orange Pegasus filly, which was saying “thank you, thank you thank you” over and over again. Luna walked out of the kitchen, and noticed the small filly now lying on top of Fluttershy while hugging her tightly, she looked at Twilight and winked before saying “wow that reminds me of last night, huh Twilight?” Fluttershy blushed, while the rest of them just laughed, even Scootaloo, who by then had calmed down. She laughed until it occurred to her that she didn’t know why she was laughing, “Hey, I don’t get it, why would you and Twilight have been….” she began to ask, before trailing of at the end, as she realised why. Scootaloo looked at the three of them staring in shock, before finally Twilight said “yes that’s right Scootaloo, Luna, Fluttershy and I are together now, and have been for the last few months, since nightmare night, we’ve just been keeping it a secret, but decided to tell everybody, after Hunter and Spike found out”. A quiet “I didn’t” came out from Fluttershy, under Scootaloo, and Luna responded “we put it to a vote and you lost, besides, look how well she’s taking it”, pointing at Scootaloo, who at that moment fell onto her side, dead to the world. Hunter looked at the three adult mares, and said “hey I think you broke my new friend”, and walked over to her, before bending down and poking her wings, which for some reason sprouted outwards, as if his hands had shocked her, Scootaloo leapt up and fled to the other side of the room. Everybody else gasped, and Fluttershy said “no Hunter, don’t do that, it’s impolite to touch a Pegasus’s wings, unless she asks you”, and then after a look from Twilight and Luna, she continued “oh and a unicorn’s horn is as well”. Hunter looked apologetically towards Scootaloo and reached out his hand, before saying “sorry I didn’t know, please forgive me”, and walked over to Scootaloo, who responded “of course I do, it would be mean not to, if you didn’t know it’s not your fault”, then they hugged. Twilight spoke up “so why the visit Scootaloo, you seem very enthusiastic about something this morning”, Scootaloo blushed having evidently forgotten why she had come in the first place, and then said “well, after Rainbow Dash saw how you had adopted Hunter yesterday, she decided to adopt me, and so now I have a new mum too, thanks to what you did Fluttershy, so I wanted to come say thank you”. Fluttershy nodded and said “that’s okay honey, I’m just glad that finally happened”. Luna looked at the rest of the occupants of the room, before saying “well I don’t know about you guys, but I’m pretty hungry”, the casualness that she was displaying shocked Scootaloo, again, and she fainted, again. Scootaloo awoke, finding herself lying in Fluttershy’s bed, while the owner of the bed held some smelling salts under her nose. Fluttershy noticed that she was awake, greeted her and said “sweetie, Hunter and Spike are going to catch fish, but I don’t think you would enjoy that, so why don’t you go tell your friends about Rainbow Dash, I’m sure they’ll be glad to hear it”. Scootaloo nodded, and got out of the bed, the young Pegasus found herself surrounded by the worried looks of the other ponies, as well as Spike and Hunter, but on seeing her standing easily they smiled. Hunter said “Spike and me are going to go now, I have to show him how to do everything, it’s going to be a lot of fun”, and with that he and Spike left, walking towards a nearby stream, after acquiring a chopping board, a bucket and a knife. Hunter showed Spike the ropes, and happily found that the lake in which they were fishing had many fish in it, allowing him to actually show why he so enjoyed fishing. However, he soon found that Spike had never actually killed an animal before, and his new friend was visibly sickened when Hunter stabbed a small trout like fish in the head. Hunter reassured Spike, saying “don’t worry, they don’t think, so there’s nothing wrong with this, and besides Spike, I have to eat, and I don’t want Fluttershy to have to hurt any of her animal friends”, Spike nodded his head, and even though he did join in the fishing he absolutely refused to be the one that killed them. Eventually he and Spike began just leaving the rods in the water, and mucking around besides the lake, chatting and playing games, in the greenery, while basking in the sunlight raining down upon them. Spike and Hunter lay down, under the shade of a tree, near the river, watching the water slow move by. Hunter decided that he should ask before he did something wrong, and so enquired about interspecies relationships. Spike reacted embarrassed, before realising that he himself was in much same situation with Rarity, and explained, “well, it is actually pretty accepted, I mean, it’s not an everyday thing, but griffins and ponies get together pretty often, and dragons sometimes do with ponies, however this can only be when their younger, as when they get bigger, it apparently just wouldn’t work, for some reason”. Hunter nodded before saying “oh I bet that’s because of sex”, Spike looked over at him and asked “what’s that, I’ve always wondered, but Twilight won’t tell me, which is really hypocritical, she has tonnes of books on it locked in a safe under her bed”. Hunter responded, “it’s were two adults get naked and wrestle, because it feels good, my dad said it expresses their love, after I saw him and my mum doing it once, how it does, I really don’t know”. Spike then asked “why did you want to know about that anyway”, Hunter blushed and responded, “oh no reason”. Spike nudged him and said “is it something to do with an orange and purple Pegasus, hmmm”, causing Hunter to blush even more, which made Spike laugh and start rolling around on the ground, while saying “I knew, I knew it”. Hunter responded “well I think you like Rarity, I saw how you were acting around her, but isn’t she a bit old for you, she’s what, 23 and you’re like my age”, Spike responded “nah she’s only 21 and I'm 16 it’s not that big a difference”. Hunter looked over at Spike in confusion, and question, “how are you 16 you’re so small”, Spike’s nostrils flared, “no I'm not I'm the exact right height for a dragon of my age, in fact I'm actually 2 centimares taller than I should be” he huffed angrily. Hunter apologised saying “sorry I didn’t know” and then paused for a bit and smiled ruefully before continuing “I guess I'm going to have to get used to saying that”, and started laughing which started Spike laughing, and they both rolled over in the dirt under the tree. They made a small meal, using Spike’s fire to cook his fish, while his friend shocked Hunter by eating some quarts rocks they found near the river, saying they tasted like marshmallows, only slightly crunchier. Eventually the two friends grew tired of fishing, just as the sun started going down, they headed back towards Fluttershy’s cottage, where they found Twilight and Luna making themselves dinner, visibly sickened by the sight of numerous dead fish in the bucket, which Hunter quickly put it in the, magically powered fridge, the fact that it was magically powered he learnt from Twilight, who saw him stare at the fridge, trying to figure out its secrets. Both mares relaxed slightly when Hunter had put the bucket away, but Fluttershy noticeably mentioned getting a second fridge for that kind of thing, “as soon as possible”. Twilight was happy when she noticed how tired the two boys were from there day, and was glad that Hunter and Spike had become fast friends in such a short time, as she knew that Spike had really been yearning for some company of his own mental age, that weren’t female, like the cutiemark crusaders. She began to wonder if maybe Spike should start going to school with Miss Cheerilee, with kids his own age, she knew she could easily teach Spike all he would learn their, and that the dragon probably already knew it, but the social interactions that a child needed was something which spike was surely lacking. Twilight wandered over to Spike, and was somewhat shocked when her young charge said “hey Twilight, me and Hunter were talking, and we want to know if I could go to school with him, he’s a little worried about going by himself, and I think it could be fun”, she just nodded, happy she hadn’t had to be the one to broach the idea with him. The two young boys high fived again, which just caused their smiles to grow brighter, still unused to, in Hunter’s case high fiving a dragon, and in Spike case, high fiving at all. Twilight said “ok Spike if you really want to, but don’t expect me to cut you any slack just because you might already know what your being taught, I will expect all homework to be done promptly, that goes for you to hunter, all though I expect you to actually pay attention, as you'll be learning all you need to know about equestrian society”, to which she got a response of some half-hearted “okays”. Twilight and Fluttershy sat down, and ate dinner, while the two boys went over some ‘Daring Do’ comics that Spike had brought along the night before. Eventually, it occurred to Hunter he had seen something similar, especially the one about the crystal skull, on TV, and voiced this opinion, Spike just looked at his friend and said “what’s TV?” Hunter gasped, the fact that there was no TV only occurring to him then, he collapsed to the floor on his knees and shouted “NOOOOOOO”. Read, Rate, Review, Do what ever you want to do. I'm Howling at the Moon-Chapter QuatroSorry this took so long, and for any confusion the previous chapter might have caused, I couldn't really figure it out, and then my Internet died. OOOOOOOOOO” and Hunter fell over, silently screaming into Fluttershy’s carpet. The owner of the carpet walked over to were Spike was poking her still screaming son with a claw, and asked, “what’s wrong”, to which Spike responded “something about, TV, whatever that is, I think he’s upset it doesn’t exist here”. Twilight walked over to Hunter and said “Hunter, what’s TV?”, causing the young human to look up with his tear stained eyes, and whisper one word, “glorious”, before collapsing back down and crying. They left him there, watching as he slowly calmed down, until the point where he got up and apologised for his outbreak, and said “sorry about that, I just miss home, you know, it’s not that this place is bad, it’s just so different, and I’m still not really used to it”. Fluttershy hugged him and said “don’t worry, you'll get used to it”, while Twilight grabbed Spike and said “yeah it’s getting kind of late, I think Spike and I should go, goodbye guys, we’ll see you at the party tomorrow”, Spike said “goodbye, thanks for showing me how to fish”, and the two left, Spike riding Twilight. “Fluttershy, do you think I’m ever going to fit in here?” Hunter quietly asked, after their friends had gone, “of course you will, Hunter, just remember, this is where you belong now, as surely as if you had been born here”, Fluttershy responded reassuringly. “Come on, it’s time for bed, we have a big day tomorrow, you’re going to meet all of Ponyville”, she said, and they both got up. Hunter was tucked in by Fluttershy, who kissed his forehead, and then went off to bed herself. Hunter awoke, to a pink pony, looking right at him, her face pressed to his, eye to eye, so he yelled, waking screaming for the second time recently. Suddenly, the pink pony, which he now realised, was Pinkie Pie, shouted out “let’s party,” and quieted down, before saying “I need your help”, Hunter stared for a second before slurring out “why”. Pinkie looked down, abashed and quietly said “I don’t know what you eat”, Hunter slowly looked at her and said “anything but grass and leaves, cupcakes would be great”, Pinkie reacted, jumping up like a rocket and disappearing into a pot plant. Hunter watched the pot plant where she had disappeared, hoping she wouldn’t come back, and when she didn’t immediately appear; he rolled over and fell back asleep. Hunter woke for the second time that day, to the delectable smell of pancakes, he burst out of bed, and ran into the kitchen, before shouting “thankyou somebody, they have pancakes”, Fluttershy smiled and laughed, “oh, so you like these” she asked, to which her son responded “like them, there the greatest thing ever, please tell me you guys have maple syrup”. Fluttershy frowned, but then smiled and said “no, but we do have zap apple jam”, Hunter almost frowned, but then smiled brightly and said “ok”. He soon found himself in front of a large stack of pancakes, spreading rainbow coloured jam on them, and he took a bite, and fell in love. After the breakfast, Hunter dressed in another pair of clothes, consisting of khaki pants and a t-shirt, which Rarity had given him, and they walked to the Ponyville library, where the party was being held. They entered the tree, and Hunter found himself surrounded by curious ponies, who were introducing themselves and their kin, asking if he can really talk, as Pinkie Pie had told them all about him, but they were still sceptical. Hunter acted calmly answering questions as easily as he could; but he was surprised when his adopted mother hid behind her mane, and behind him. She soon got over this when she saw Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo approaching, cooing at how comfortable they were in each other’s company. Rainbow Dash spoke to Hunter first “hey kid, sorry I didn’t introduce myself the other day, I just had something I had to do, I’m Rainbow Dash, by the way”, and offered her hoof. Hunter didn’t notice, as through the whole conversation, he had been looking at Scootaloo, love hearts for pupils in his eyes, Scootaloo, was unaware, as at that moment, her and Sweetie Belle were talking, waiting for Apple Bloom, and the rest of her family to arrive. Rainbow Dash noticed the hearts and nudged Fluttershy, asking “does he know how obvious he’s being?” Fluttershy responded “oh my no, I don’t think he does, I had better tell him”. Luckily at this point, Spike came over, and walked in front of Hunter, snapping him out of his love struck daze, while Spike just laughed, well aware of what he had just interrupted. Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash talked about raising kids, something neither knew much about, although Fluttershy was the more experienced of the two, having raised animals before, so she was offering advice on the right diet for a young filly. They discussed school, and how Spike would probably be attending to, which pleased them both as they knew the mature minded young dragon would probably be a boon to their respective children, but also about homework, at which point they agreed, that they had no real knowledge of how intelligent theirs was. Hunter found himself approached by a green mare, which walked up to him and introduced herself as Lyra Heartstrings, before asking him about his hands, and how much of a benefit he found them in everyday life. Hunter looked at her, wondering why she would care, but was just told upon asking that she was curious, just before another mare approached him, introduced herself as Bon Bon, and then apologised, before dragging Lyra away. Hunter just thought ‘well, that was strange’ before these thoughts were interrupted by Spike asking “hey why don’t you see if we can get a giant game of chasey going, I’ll get all the other kids together, you ask the crusaders”, Hunter agreed and went over to talk to the two fillies in front of him. Meanwhile, Fluttershy had been approached by Twilight, who much to Rainbow Dash’s and Fluttershy’s surprise, kissed Fluttershy on the mouth, and nuzzled next to her, before saying “I’m so glad you made it”. Rainbow Dash reacted, shouting “hubbuzawa”, before starting to fall, only to be caught by Twilight’s magic, the lavender unicorn then told her cyan friend, “Fluttershy, Luna and I, are dating now, you are happy for us, and wish us well”. Rainbow Dash, nodded her head, and so Twilight released her magic, once she had, she and Fluttershy found themselves wrapped in a hug by their crazy pink friend, who had seen them kiss from across the floor. Applejack walked over, her entire family, apart from Granny Smith, having just arrived, “why’s she huggin them?” she asked Rainbow Dash, who said “Twilight and Fluttershy are dating, and just admitted it, I think their also with Luna, awesome right”. The orange earth pony looked at her four friends, before asking “so where’s Rarity then, ah’m sure she’s got somein to say about this”, and found herself accosted by that very mare, having walked on this situation after a quick visit to the little fillies room to freshen up. The purple and white mare said “I assure you my dear Applejack, that I have been aware of this relationship since its very fruition, a mare like me can tell these things, and I of course approve of it, such a wonderful grouping”, and nodded sagely. Twilight and Fluttershy smiled at their close friends, before Twilight turned to her special somepony and said “see I told you they would be happy for us, don’t you feel silly now”, the pink and yellow Pegasus nodded her head, which earned her another kiss from Twilight. Hunter in the intervening time had garnered the courage to ask Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle if they wanted to play, they accepted the offer, and they invited Apple Bloom to come, bumping into her as they were headed outside and she was headed inside. They all headed back outside, noticing the Sun was high in the sky, perfect for chasey, right before their view, apart from Hunter’s was blocked by a large red earth pony. Hunter put out his hand, and introduced himself, before giving the red stallion a chance to talk, Applebloom smiled and said “Hunter, you silly billy, this is mah brother Big Macintosh, or Big Mac, for short”, the red pony agreed by saying “eeyup”, and nodded his greeting, before side stepping them and heading inside. The four tweens went to the nearby park, where they found the rest of the towns young ponies, and Spike. The kids all played hide and go seek chasey for a while, with Hunter hiding in tree’s, as he had found the only ponies that could get up there with him where Pegasus, and even then they didn’t really like to as the often got stuck. However, Hunter found that it was impossible for him to outrun even the smallest of ponies, their quadrupedal form, easily beating his bipedal, but he found, as he was thinner, he could hide much easier, especially with his tree climbing abilities. He did notice however, that there were two ponies he hadn’t been introduced to not playing with them, but rather where looking at him with disgust, something he found very confusing, as he done nothing he could think of to disgust anyone. Curious Hunter approached them, and said “hi there I'm Hunter” before asking “why aren’t you guys playing, come on, it’s a lot of fun”. The pink, diamond tiara cutiemark having one spoke first, “you are the most disgusting creature I have ever seen, why would I want to play with you? And what’s this I hear about your mother being Fluttershy, how does that even work?” Hunter blushed, and said “oh, she’s not my real mother, she died when I was younger, and so when I came to Equestria, Fluttershy adopted me, which was very nice of her”. She spoke again, laughing cruelly “so you’re an orphan, hanging out with all the other orphans, Apple Bloom, whose parents, died in a farming accident, that baby dragon, Sweetie Belle, who lives with her sister so often she may as well not have parents, and Scootaloo, who we all know lived in an orphanage, oh it’s just too funny”, Hunter had been getting angrier and angrier as the little pink pony spoke, but when she mentioned Scootaloo, he snapped, and yelled. He ran at her and picked her up, actually surprised by how light she was, and hung her upside down by her rear hoof in one hand, and then he slapped her with his other, straight on her face, and said “apologise right now, and I’ll let you go”. He heard behind him, screaming, and looked around, finding himself much higher above the ground than he usually was. He looked down, and saw that he was at about the same height as his father; he looked at the little pony in his hand, which was growing smaller by the minute, before realising he was actually growing, she wasn’t shrinking. She looked at him with fear in her eyes, and started sobbing crying out “I'm sorry, really I am, please, let me go”. Hunter was shocked by what was happening, and dropped her, forgetting how high of the ground he was now holding her, and was somewhat relieved, when, on hitting the ground, the earth pony got straight back up and ran off, screaming, her spoon cutiemark having compadre racing after her. He calmed down, wondering what was going on, but soon found himself shrinking back down again. Spike and the cutiemark crusaders raced up to him, the rest of the children having raced off to their parents, and shouted “what was that?” Hunter looked at them and said “I have no idea”. Twilight heard screaming, and she and the rest of the Elements of Harmony raced outside, prepared to face whatever was causing it. They were shocked to see, in the park, Hunter’s head poking above the trees, in a perfect rendition of a larger version of him, not older, just Hunter, multiplied in size. Fluttershy gasped, and raced over to her son, who even then was beginning to shrink, while the rest of them just looked on in awe, as fillies and colts raced past them, heading for their parents. Applejack was the first to speak “Twilight, please tell me that’s some sorta ability that humans have, cause otherwise I have no idea what in tarnation, is goin on”, Twilight shook her head and replied “I don’t think so Applejack, but I really hope so, because the only thing we know that can do that, is encased in stone in the Canterlot gardens”. The other mares gaped at this, and then they all followed after Fluttershy, going as fast as they could. In the Canterlot gardens, a statue, that had been placed there months ago, was rocking back and forth, back and forth, until finally, it over balanced, and smashed into the floor. Inside the statue, was a strange mismatched creature of about 5 foot, which upon waking from its long slumber, stood up, and yawned, before looking around at its surroundings. Discord looked around himself, and thought ‘everything looks the same, it couldn’t have been more than a few months at most, wow, I expected to be in there for at least another couple thousand years’, he began speaking aloud to himself, saying “I think this calls for a celebration”, and clicked his claws. When nothing happened, Discord, didn’t realise at first, and looked at his paw, expecting it to contain chocolate milk, he eyed it curiously, and clicked his claws again, and again nothing happened. Discord the began using different magicians poses, and nothing happened, then held up a stick and shouted “alakasam”, and nothing happened, he folded his arms in front of himself, and nodded, but nothing happened, finally he clapped his paw and claw together, as loudly and as hard as he could, all he got was sore appendages. He was confused for the first time, in a very long time, and spoke to himself saying “I guess I had better go see those really boring princesses”, just before a whole phalanx of Celestia’s royal guard arrived in his little clearing, along with both of the princesses. Discord looked at their angry faces and realised, without his magic, they could really hurt him, before holding out his paw and his claw, shrugging and saying “Lulu, Tia, I assure you my dears, I have no idea what’s going on”. And Sleeping in the Middle of a Summer Afternoon-Chapter TwoFluttershy was cantering towards Hunter, coming to reassure him, when she saw two young fillies racing past her, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon, if she remembered correctly. This only made her speed up, flapping her wings to increase her speed. However she was soon surpassed by the self-titled Equestria’s Greatest Flyer, flying straight towards Hunter, a look of deep seated fear in her eyes. She flew up, and then descended downwards, aiming at Hunter. Her speed increased, a conical barrier building around her, until she broke through, and created a rainboom, different colours spreading out from her body. With this increase in speed she hit Hunter, making him fly away from his four friends, before landing in the dirt, Rainbow Dash straddling him, and hitting him repeatedly shouting “get away from my daughter Discord”. By this time Fluttershy had reached the two, and pulled Rainbow Dash of Hunter, before picking her up and throwing her away from him, yelling “get away from my son, he’s not Discord, leave him alone”. Fluttershy eyed Rainbow Dash as she got up, the cyan mare staring right back at her, a similar look of anger, mixed with fear, on their faces. Hunter stood up, surprisingly uninjured by the attack by Rainbow Dash, he say the rest of his mother’s friends racing up behind Rainbow Dash, before he found himself surrounded by a purple glow, Twilight’s magic holding him aloft in the air. Fluttershy turned around, noticing Hunter’s position above her, she looked back at her friend’s and said “I don’t care what you think, he’s my son, he is not Discord, and I won’t have you do anything to him”. Applejack, an expression of fear plastered on her face, responded “look honey, we don’t know what’s going on, but how can yah be sure, I mean, you saw just as much as we did, and it’s mighty suspicious”. Fluttershy looked at her son, suspended in the air above her, before turning back to her friends and saying “I just know I can trust him, please believe me, I just know I can”, and looked at them. Her friends considered her, before smiling, and walking up to her, Rainbow Dash as well, and said collectively “of course we believe you”, and hugged her. Hunter started laughing, which caused them all to look at him confused, he responded “sorry but this is hilarious, you guys are all happy, while I'm just floating up here, it’s kinda funny, you got to admit”. Twilight smiled at him, and released him, dropping him the few feet to the ground. Spike and the Cutiemark Crusaders ran up, the small dragon clutching a letter in his claws. “Twilight” he cried “the princesses are coming, along with a guest, their bringing the Elements of Harmony. Suddenly, there was a huge flash, and the two princesses, a smaller Discord, and a phalanx of guards all appeared in front of them, next to the tree library. Twilight called out to them, and they turned towards the meadow, before walking quickly over. “Hello Twilight”, the two princesses said simultaneously, Celestia with a motherly tone, Luna with something more suggestive. Pinkie shouted, “Yay Discord” and looked up at the sky hopefully, until Discord said “sorry Pinkie, but it appears I am no longer the controller of chaotic magic”. Celestia continued, her younger sister letting her talk “Twilight, Discord has lost his chaos magic, something else is now in possession of it, we need to find out who or what it is, and capture it immediately”. Twilight looked at her hooves, before straightening up and saying “I don’t think we need to look very far, in fact, I’m fairly sure I know exactly who it is”, and turned, pointing her hoof at the now standing Hunter, who smiled, not really sure what they were talking about. Luna reacted, saying what they were all thinking, “oh no, please don’t say we have to capture him, I like him”, Hunter was startled at this. He started crying “I don’t want to go to jail, I know what I did was bad, but I didn’t mean to, honest”, Celestia looked at her student and then the rest of the surrounding individuals, before saying “I think we both have some explaining to do, especially Hunter, and Discord”. The 5 friends explained how Hunter had been interacting with them recently, Fluttershy and Twilight having the most to say on the subject, with Spike often interjecting. Discord then explained how he had been released, caught, and all before being given anything to eat, or drink, which he thought was pretty rough, the last bit said pointedly at Celestia and Luna. Hunter, meanwhile, had been looking curiously at the draconequus, so he asked, once everybody else had finished, “So what’s that” and pointed at Discord. Discord responded, “I, my dear boy, am a dragon-pony, mixed with other creatures, among whom are goats, griffons and lions, but that is not what matters, what is important, is that I am your predecessor concerning the holder of chaos magic, and so I must teach you how to control it, if you are to survive this at all”, and nodded before cackling with glee at the concerned look on everyone else’s face. Twilight looked at him accusingly, before saying “why would you want to do that, not only has Hunter taken your magic, something I must assume you’re annoyed by, but your evil, you tried to destroy my friendship and Equestria”. Discord looked hurt, he responded “Twilight, I assure you, I wanted to hurt nopony, and I am sorry about what I did to your friendship, but look at it from my perspective, I had been encased in stone for thousands of years, and so I just had to stop the only thing that could hurt me, which was you and your friends, sure I had fun doing it, but that’s only because I was really bored, I mean come on, I am millions of years old, you think this is the first time I have taken control of Equestria, concerning the young, human was it? It’s not merely a matter of wanting to help him, I need to help him, otherwise he could end up destroying everything, myself included, now that I am mortal. Please understand this has to be done”. Everybody turned to look at Hunter, who was looking very perplexed, and asked “I’m not really sure I understand what’s going on, at all”. Fluttershy just shook her head sadly, and said “Hunter, I really have to something to tell you”, and began to explain what had just happened, as well as their previous history with Discord. Hunter’s face changed from confusion, to shock, to confusion, to happiness, to confusion again, before he smiled dumbly, and said “ok”, even though, everything, was not okay. Spike nudged Scootaloo, who was standing next to him, and whispered “I really don’t think he understands”, Scootaloo looked at him suspiciously and whispered back, “And you do?” Discord continued “now I believe I’m going to need somewhere to stay, I vote Pinkie’s house, as I think her small amount of chaos magic will be fun to be around, even if she is now more powerful than myself”. Twilight gasped “what do you mean her small amount of chaos magic?” Discord laughed, and responded “oh yes, well, many, many years ago, I grated the Pie family a small amount of my magic for a boon they had provided me, as well as Pinkie’s mother’s family, the Cake family, who also provided me a boon, and when they combined to create Pinkie Pie, well she got double, and so she can use an actually fairly decent amount of chaos magic”. Twilight was immensely confused, but decided to query the first of many questions, asking “What were the boons”, Discord chuckled again and said “isn’t it obvious, the Pies invented pie, although how they ended up gem farming I’ll never know, and the Cakes invented cake, two of the greatest things ever, although you should have seen what I did for the Chocolate Milks”. Pinkie began speaking “oh my Celestia, me and Discord as roomies, oh this is going to be so cool, the food we could make, the parties we could have, and the pranks, the pranks” and then collapsed, the overwhelming awesomeness of being roommates with Discord getting to her. Celestia looked at her surrounding subjects, Discord now included in this, and said “alright, well, you shall tell the towns people that Discord escaped, which caused Hunter’s increase in size, but we subdued him, which resulted in the loss of his power, and now he lives here in Ponyville, as there was nowhere else for him to live, now that’s over, I assume that Hunter should get back to playing, your only a child once”, she finished the last part, sadly. Twilight and her friends gasped, while Hunter and the other younger ponies and dragon just ran off, content to try to look for something to do, with the few hours of daylight remaining. Luna looked accusingly at Discord, and said “Discord, if you so much as touch one of my loves, I will end you”, Discord gasped, and said “loves”, Twilight and Fluttershy blushed, causing Discord to laugh loudly, and say “oh this is going to be so much fun”. With that, Celestia and Luna left, along with the phalanx of guards, disappearing in a flash of magic. Twilight turned to Pinkie, and said “you better not have known it was chaos magic that allowed you to do those things”, Pinkie turned, smiled, and said “of course I did Twilight, I just thought it would be to eggheady to explain everything to you, so I didn’t, now I got to go plan a party”, and then she dashed off, grabbing Discord, leaving a very angry Twilight in her wake. Fluttershy went over to her mare friend, and comforted her, recognising the signs of a Twilight freak out, Spike noticed from across the meadow and shouted “she’s gonna blow” and then ran off chuckling with his friends. Twilight smiled evilly, and then her horn glowed, and she vanished. Hunter and Fluttershy walked into town, aiming for a gingerbread house, as Fluttershy had said to Hunter that “if he wanted a guitar, he had to apologise to Diamond Tiara first, even if he would have to lie to do it”, so he had agreed, but only if they stopped at Pinkie’s bakery first, as he had been told some very good things about it. They walked in, and where surprised to find Pinkie Pie tied up hanging from the ceiling, with Twilight lying dazed underneath her, covered in cupcakes, Discord was leaning on a counter, throwing a cupcake up and down in his paw, much like a baseball player at the pitch, and the Cakes where holding each other in a corner, crying softly. Fluttershy looked at Twilight, under the cupcakes, and then up at Pinkie, before flying up to her, and untying her friend, who laughed and dashed over to Twilight and said “well, I thought it would work, but oh well, it was fun anyway”, and then ran off to her room, Discord chuckling and walking after her. Twilight started getting up, asking “what happened, I just remember asking Pinkie for a demonstration, and then, this,” and looked around her, the Cakes still sobbing quietly in the corner. Fluttershy responded “come on Twilight, I think we better leave”, Twilight nodded, muttered sorry to the Cakes, and walked out with her marefriend and Hunter, who was just looking around him, dumbfounded, at the gingerbread house. They walked towards Diamond Tiara’s house, a large mansion near the outskirts of Ponyville, and knocked on the door, somewhat surprised when it was answered by a butler, almost immediately on knocking. Filthy Rich walked over to them, after they had been let in, somewhat surprised to see the three, as the last he had heard, Hunter had attacked his daughter, supposedly without provocation, and Twilight and Fluttershy, had been trying to stop him. He was angry to say the least; his daughter had hidden herself under the bed in her room, with her friend Silver Spoon, and wouldn’t let anybody in, all because of the strange creature in front of him, who he had met, if only briefly, and thought he was a nice enough young man, until he heard what he had done to his daughter, but ever the salesman, he approached smiling. Hunter spoke up and said “hello Mr Rich, sir, I am here to apologise to your daughter, for my actions this afternoon, it was wrong of me to hurt her, and I feel bad about it”. Filthy smiled reassuringly and said “ok son, she’s just upstairs, Jeeves will show you the way”, and pointed at the butler, who nodded, and led the young human upstairs. Filthy turned two the two adult mares in front of him and asked “can humans do that growing thing all the time”, Fluttershy blushed and said “oh no, Mr Rich, he was affected by Discord, who had escaped, but it’s alright presently, we took his magic away, and now he’s living with Pinkie”. Mr Rich smiled, nodded, trying to keep his cool at the information he had just heard, before remembering the other question he wanted to ask “you wouldn’t happen to know why Hunter attacked my daughter would you, it’s just, she says she did nothing to provoke him, but I don’t think I believe her”. Twilight replied “it seems your daughter was, supposedly, laughing at Hunter and his friends for being orphans”, she replied, slightly angrily, Filthy’s smile ran from his face, replaced by one of anger, he looked at Twilight, and yelled “she did what”, and then turned and raced upstairs. Hunter meanwhile, had just made it to outside Diamond Tiara’s room, when he heard somepony shout “she did what”, and then the sound of hooves going on marble flooring, he turned towards the stairs, just in time to see Filthy Rich race up from the stairs. Filthy slowed down, walked over to his daughter’s door, and turned to Hunter, and said “young colt, I am very sorry for how my daughter treated you, there is no need for you to apologise, I think you should just leave, as I have to have a serious talk with my daughter”, before pushing his daughter’s door open, and saying “that goes for you to silver spoon, I think you should go home”. The grey and white filly raced out from the bed, and disappeared down the stairs, while Hunter walked slowly off, unsure what had just happened, but happy he didn’t have to apologise, as he really wasn’t looking forward to it. The three left the mansion, headed towards the town’s music store, Fluttershy thought that although Hunter hadn’t actually apologised, he had been going to, which was good enough. They entered the store, which was shaped like a huge violin, causing a small bell to chime. Hunter was mildly surprised when Lyra, the green mare from earlier walked over to them, from behind the counter, and smiled brightly when she saw him. “oh my Celestia, I bet your here to buy an instrument, ooh what is it, wait let me guess, it’s a string instrument, I'm going to go with, the guitar, yeah that’s right, I'm sure of it, well their over in that room, let me show you, their my second favourite instrument, after the lyre, of course”, and pointed to the back, before leading the way. Hunter followed the unicorn, while Fluttershy and Twilight looked around the store, as neither had any experience with instruments, so were a bit overwhelmed by their surroundings. Hunter and Lyra entered the guitar room, he didn’t see any familiar brands, but what he did see in the way of guitars was impressive, he walked over to an electric semi-hollow, similar to his own on earth and picked it up. He liked the weight, heavy, but as he had been always told, he was still growing, and said so, finding the neck was big, with the same reason as the weight behind it, he played a blues riff, and smiled, this was something he could do. Lyra smiled back, slightly crazed, at him, and said “wow that was good, who teaches you, oh wait I bet you don’t have a teacher yet, well, I teach instruments sometimes, at least I used to at the music college in Canterlot, before I met Bon Bon, and we moved here, so I volunteer”. Hunter looked up at the mare, his attention moving from the guitar to her, and said “you really seem excited, is something wrong?” Lyra replied “no nothing’s wrong, everything is fine, I'm just really excited”. Hunter nodded, accepting the explanation, and walked over to the amps, and found he himself out of his depth, as they were magically powered, Lyra noticed this and said, “well if you like the semi-hollow, I would recommend this one, because it would really boost the rockafilly sound”, and pointed to a fairly large amp with some vacuum tubes poking out of the top. Hunter nodded, accepting the musician’s judgement, and turned to his mother, and said “I found the guitar and the amp, oh, and a teacher”, before indicating Lyra, Fluttershy smiled and agreed, before they walked back to the counter, and bought the equipment, which they were assured would be dropped off the tomorrow, as the working day was almost over. They arranged for Hunter to come for an hour every Wednesday, starting that week, after school. Hunter said goodbye to Lyra, and thanked her for her help, before he, Fluttershy and Twilight walked back to the library. Hunter was astounded when, once they were inside the library, he and Spike, were presented with their school books, a large assortment of maths, science, geography and Equestrian, both exclaimed their annoyance at this, especially when they were told they had missed half the school year, and so had a lot of catching up to do. Fluttershy and Twilight smiled at each other, and then dropped a bombshell on the two young boys, saying, “Were going to move in together”. Fluttershy continued “Hunter, you and I are moving in with Twilight and Spike, there’s plenty of room here, so we’ll fit in easily, and I’ll just spend the day with my animal friends, if they have anything serious happen at night, I will just get them to send a messenger bird, and Angel can look after the cabin, his family can move in, which I’m sure he’ll love”, Twilight nodded, and took the figurative talking stick from her special somepony, saying “so you two are going to have a room together, and Fluttershy and I are going to have a room together, I’ll manifest some rooms when you move in, later tonight”. Hunter and Spike looked at each other, and high-fived, shouting “woo hoo, brothers”, their school books long since forgotten. The rest of that afternoon was spent moving the small amount of belongings that Hunter and Fluttershy would immediately need, as anything else could easily be gotten later, since Fluttershy was planning to return to her cabin during the day. Hunter and Spike moved into their room, which was now in what would be considered the attic in a normal house, while Fluttershy moved into Twilight’s room, which now had a wall and a door, for privacy. Spike and Hunter lay on the bunk bed that Twilight had made extend from the tree, and smiled happily. Both realised simultaneously that they had yet to have dinner, so raced down to the kitchen, where they saw Twilight and Fluttershy, working together to create dinner, a small salad, with dressing. Hunter became conscious of the fact that he had no meat, but then saw a large cooler box, lying on the counter. Twilight saw him looking at the box and said “oh Hunter, I forgot to say, I ordered the meat yesterday from the griffin in canterlot, and it just arrived in town, on the train”. Hunter looked in, and gasped, he saw bacon, and some kind of steaks and sausages, hopefully not cow, as well as some white meat. He was very happy with what he saw, and was about to begin cooking it, when he saw his new family looking at him, slightly disdainfully. “I’ll just wait for you guys to finish, by the way, have you got any potatoes”, Twilight nodded, and then herself and Fluttershy walked into the living room, and began to eat their salad. Hunter looked at Spike, who was looking back at him, expectantly, “what” Hunter queried, while taking some steak out of the box, which he found was ridiculously cold, but put that down to magic. Spike laughed and said “you’re going to need me to light the oven, what you think you could just heat it up yourself? Besides, I want to try meat, and whatever you’re doing with the potatoes”, Hunter nodded, pointed at the oven, and said “light her up”, and laughed. Spike did just that, and lit up the oven, lighting its coals. Hunter placed the steaks in a pan, and then prepared a pot full of oil. Spike smelt the cooking meat, and grinned, finding himself surprisingly attracted to it, before looking and the heating pot of oil and remarking “what, are you making hay fries, I thought you couldn’t eat them”. Hunter looked at him confused, before shaking his head and saying “nah better I'm making potato fires”, and began cutting up the potatoes. Eventually both he and Spike found themselves looking at plates of medium rare steak, and chips, with Hunter remarking, “I just wish we had some tomato sauce”, Spike laughed and said “why didn’t you ask, I’ll go get it”, and walked into the kitchen, returning moments later with a bottle of tomato sauce. They sat down to eat, Spike remarking on the deliciousness, of both the meat, which he adored, and the chips, which he convinced Fluttershy and Twilight to try, who both agreed that they would really like to find out how to cook them. Hunter meanwhile, was tucking into his steak with gusto, having been desperate for red meat for days, but not wanting to say so, fearful of what it might cause to occur, he was happy that he had given Spike a whole new type of food to try, and that he was enjoying it, even if he had fire ruby sprinkles on it first, which was apparently “like chilli powder, only hotter”. Once they had finished, Twilight and Fluttershy had gone upstairs, muttering about “breaking in new sheets”, and not wanting “to be disturbed”. Hunter and spike had ice-cream, before brushing their teeth and going to bed themselves, excited for their first day of school in Ponyville, but tired from their experiences that day. Celestia sat in her study, crying, looking at pictures of past students, as well as friends, confidants and compadres that decorated the walls of the room, in between numerous bookcases, and a fire place, which contained a roaring fire. Luna walked in to the study, having heard her sister crying while walking past, and wondering what was wrong. She asked that, to which Celestia responded “Hunter”. Luna was confused further and asked “sister, I do not understand why you are so sad, Discord is defeated, and in his place a child has gained the chaos magic, a child who is being raised by the represented Element of Kindness, what about this situation makes you so unhappy as to cry?” Celestia rubbed her eyes with her hooves, blinking away tears before saying “Luna, don’t you see, this poor child, through no fault of his own, has been given the same deplorable gift given to us by the moon and the sun respectively, by his new powers, the gift of immortality, he, like us, will watch his friends, family and loves grow old and die, while nothing will occur to him beyond the point where he is at his perfect age, when he will stop growing”. Luna started crying herself, and walked over to Celestia, and hugged her sister before saying “oh that poor, poor child”. So drop us a line, say what you like/dislike, how you think I’m doing, you know, any advice you want to give, also if you have any ideas how chapter three has 110 views, and 4 and 5 have 118, please tell.
Hello World, Hunter Says Hello -Chapter OneLuna was dozing watching her night sky, while contemplating the way her day had gone, how she had woken up in the morning in the middle of a lake, with her wings strapped down and a magical stopper placed on her horn, before having to suck it up and swim in the frigid cold lake, and enter her and her sister’s castle, dripping wet and cold. By the time she had located her sister, finding her in one of the lesser used towers of the afore mentioned castle, she had calmed down slightly, but not enough to stop herself from throwing a large vat of honey on her sister and then throw feathers on her. This caused the two to begin a pillow fight that lasted hours, and only ended when both found themselves unable to see, because of the amount of feathers spread throughout the room. Luna chuckled, remembering her day and smiled, she had been so enjoying it, when she had realised it was time to raise the moon, and had done it, while feeling almost regretful for having to stop her fun, yet looking at her night now, she was happy she realised, and content. Right up till the moment of the explosion, right in the middle of the Canterlot gardens. Twilight awoke that morning to Spike shaking her vigorously, waving a recently received scroll in her face, which on closer inspection, said “Dear Twilight Sparkle, We have found something unknown, and wish to use your considerable abilities in scientific study to help us understand what has occurred, also please bring Spike with you to Canterlot, as we believe having a similar aged companion may help us communicate with the unknown in question, also if you could please bring your friend Fluttershy, as we have been told of her abilities with animals, we will have a coach sent to you in an hour, please be ready. Yours sincerely Luna and Cellestia P.S. Prepare yourself, he is utterly adorable-Luna” “That’s strange” Twilight thought, but then Spike told her that he had received the message 15 minutes ago, and she only had 45 minutes to, have breakfast, get Fluttershy, and prepare to be in the company of royalty and so any thoughts on what might have occurred where taken from her mind, as she was distracted by other things. 45 minutes later found Fluttershy, Spike and Twilight, standing outside Ponyville library, as two royal guards pulled up in front of them, Twilight and Spike entered the coach, while Fluttershy shook with fear as Twilight had only told her that her expertise with wild animals was needed, and so she was very afraid of what she might be about to meet. After a few minutes of Twilight and Spike looking at her expectantly, she boarded the coach and they set of for Canterlot Castle. An hour later they landed on the nursery tower of the castle, which to Twilights knowledge had not seen use since her own early days of studying under Cellestia’s tutelage. The trio of friends found both princesses waiting expectantly for them, and so they hurried of the coach, then the guards flew of back to the garage. After a quick exchange of hellos, the all entered the nursery where they were surprised to find a small hairless ape, who was standing throwing a ball against the wall, looking for all the world to not even care that he was surrounded by brightly coloured, talking ponies, but was rather concentrating on his game of personal catch, much like that which Steve Mcqueen entered in The Great Escape, although the child only knew the game from watching Chicken Run. However once Luna cleared her throat, the child looked over at the 4 ponies and a dragon, his eyes running over the three newcomers, when they finally alighted on the Spike, who was last, they opened in surprise, the child cried, “it’s, a dragon, can I play with him, please, Luna, pretty please” his excitement causing him to lisp slightly, and, not waiting for a response, he threw his ball at Spike, who moaned “ow” when he caught it, with his face. The child looked scared at this and started begging for the dragon not to burn him with his fire, at which point the five chuckled, as they knew Spike would never do such a thing. Luna began talking explaining the situation “he arrived him this morning, after his arrival caused a huge explosion in the garden’s centre square, where some policeponies found him sitting in the middle crying, completely unscathed, and asking for his daddy, as you can tell he is related to monkeys, but is vastly more intelligent than one. He has lived for 10 and half years, which is apparently very little, when compared to his father’s supposed age of 40, which has led us to believe that his species, which he claims are called hu-mans, age at the same rate as ponies such as yourselves, as to what brought him here, apparently his father was some form of scientist, investigated in finding other dimensions, this was all we could find out about this. Oh, and also, his names hunter, and he’s very hungry, because we don’t know what he eats, apart from that it isn’t hay or flowers, we haven’t tried anything else yet”. Fluttershy cried out at this and wandered over to the child, who had been nodding his head during the speech, as if to bolster that it was correct. She asked “hunter would it be alright if you could please show me your teeth, if that’s alright with you”, the child nodded and opened his mouth wide, showing both canines and molars, which slightly surprised Fluttershy, but, having dealt with omnivores before, she turned around and said “he is omnivorous, so I would try feeding him fish, if you could find any”, Luna immediately called for a servant and requested some of the fish they kept for when Griffin dignitaries visited. Throughout all of this Hunter looked at Spike expectantly, as the dragon now held his ball in his four clawed hand, Spike through the ball back and Hunter caught it, they did this a few times and then started bouncing it against the floor and walls of the room, laughing whenever the other didn’t catch it. So enthralled where they with their game, they didn’t realise when the adult ponies in the room began looking at hunters stature, as he was standing up straight, rather than the slight stoop that all known monkeys had, Twilight decided to figure out the intelligence level of the human, and so told Spike and Hunter to stop playing, which caused them both to complain. Twilight started asking him maths and equestrian questions, finding that his level of intelligence was only slightly above average to that of a pony of similar age. With the questioning done, Cellestia asked the question on everyone’s mind “what now”, and all but the one who said it where surprised when Fluttershy said “I’ll take him, at least, if that is okay with the princesses” when they agreed, arrangements were made for her to receive money for looking after him, and that she would legally adopt him as her son, the five seeming to realise that as they had never heard of this happening before, it was unlikely that Hunter would be able to return home, and that they should just wait and see what happened, with Twilight helping with the responsibilities of raising an unknown sentient creature. After these arrangements were made, Hunter’s fish arrived, grilled, at which point he dug in voraciously, somewhat surprised when no one offered nor told him, to use a knife and fork, happy that she had found something he ate, Fluttershy smiled, and said “I think everything will be fine, and it seems he should be able to learn at the Ponyville school” and nodded at this, looking at the others for confirmation, and when finding it smiling wider. Twilight was surprised by how assertive her good friend was acting, but decided that it had something to do with motherly feeling that Hunter seemed to be causing in her, she looked at her mentor, who was looking at Hunter with a mix of confusion, as well as, surprisingly sadness, Twilight noticed this and motioned to her teacher, that she wanted to talk outside. Once outside, she asked her long standing friend what was wrong, and was surprised when it was a confirmation of what she herself had been thinking “I'm just sad for him” Cellestia said “either he comes from a society which uses children in experiments, or something has gone seriously wrong, I would like you to slowly question him over the next few weeks, while whatever occurred is still fresh in his mind, as I would like to establish what occurred in his world”. Twilight agreed too and they re-entered the room, which had descended into madness when they had left, with an impromptu game of tag occurring with Fluttershy flying away from Luna, who was carrying the young human in her hooves, while Spike hid behind a small cot in the room, all with huge smiles on their faces. When everyone had calmed down, Hunter decided to spring a large question that was on his mind, “why isn’t anyone wearing clothes?” The rest of occupants looked surprised at this, wondering why the child thought this was a formal occasion, but after questioning Hunter, they found that on his home planet, called either Australia, or earth, depending on how you formed your question, they learned that as they did not have fur, the humans continually wore clothing, and Hunter had not mentioned this before because it was a particularly warm day, and he had decided that if no one else was wearing clothes, why should he, even if they were ponies and he was a human. Smiling they told him that Fluttershy would be taking him to her home as he would have to go to school, Hunter then asked a question everyone hoped to avoid “but when can I go home” he asked in a semi pleading, semi questioning tone. Fluttershy approached him, a sorrowful look on her face and said “Hunter I'm sorry to say but I don’t think you’re ever going to see your home again”. Hunter looked surprised at this but eventually smiled saying “so I get to play with my new friends for ever, yay”, the rest of them smiled sadly, agreeing with him, but all thinking about the day he would realise what this meant. Twilight eventually decided it was time to return to Ponyville, and to make preparations for Hunter’s new life, and so her, Fluttershy, Spike and Hunter bid the princesses farewell, and promised to keep them informed of how everything was going. When Hunter came to say goodbye, he hugged Luna tightly, and thanked her for being her friend thatday, as he put it, “had been having a very bad day until she showed up and made everything better”. Luna giggled lightly, happy to be seen as just a nice pony doing a nice thing, rather than with all the negative connotations she was used to her presence bringing. On the coach ride back to Ponyville, hunter sent the ride looking out the window, screaming with delight at flighting through the air. When they reached Ponyville, Twilight told the guards to drop of Fluttershy and Hunter at Fluttershy’s home, while she shopped for thing that Fluttershy now needed, if she were to raise a child, and to also tell Rarity to come to Fluttershy’s house, to make Hunter some new clothes, as she realised that, at the very least, he was going to need clothes at night, because of his hairless body. While Twilight was doing this, Fluttershy was introducing Hunter to her animal friends, who were all waiting patiently for her to feed them. Hunter asked if he could help, and was somewhat surprised when, not only was he allowed to help, but he was also allowed to cut up carrots with a knife. So shocked was he with this responsibility, he did it extremely carefully, and apparently perfectly, because once he had presented it to Angel, the small bunny went over and hugged his leg, as if deciding that, because of his chopping skills , the young human deserved his friendship. Fluttershy saw this and smiled, she had been worried about Angel’s jealous nature, but saw that the two were getting along famously. Twilight arrived later that night, with a new bed, some reading materials for children, an anatomy of omnivorous mammals’ book, and Rarity, in tow, having dropped of Spike at the library, deciding he had had enough excitement for one day. Rarity and herself stumbled upon a picture of a perfect family, with Angel, Hunter and Fluttershy all playing Monopony, with Angel winning but only by a small margin, and a small salad placed in front of them. Rarity, generous as ever, found herself at a loss when seeing the human, not knowing whether to go over and hug him or to cringe in fear because of his strangeness, but eventually decided to hug him, because of the way her good friend Fluttershy was acting around him. She walked up to Hunter and introduced herself, much surprised when the young child bowed to her and said “my dear Rarity, it is a boon upon my life to have made your acquaintance, I do so hope that you and myself can be friends” and then bursting out laughing, with Fluttershy doing the same, if a bit quieter, as they had planned the little welcome before her arrival. Rarity decided to ask the child what he usually wore, and was somewhat surprised when he said jeans, a t-shirt, and leather runners, Rarity knew what leather was, but also knew that it was a material that’s use was forbidden, most ponies cringing at the thought of wearing a dead animal. After hearing Hunter say this, Twilight took it upon herself to ask Hunter about the flora and fauna of where he came from, first she asked if there where ponies where he came from, pleasantly surprised when he answered in the affirmative, she asked them what they were like, but was soon sad that she had, as Hunter explained the differences between this new lands ponies, and those from where he came. He said “well there usually white or black or brown or a mix of that and there a lot bigger than you guys, at least 10 times the size, (although he said this in such a manner that Twilight though he must be exaggerating), and I rode one all by myself at a farm, it was lots of fun, but they didn’t talk which would have been cool”, this shocked Twilight, who immediately asked about all of Equestria’s other sentient creatures, and was somewhat shocked when she was told that they either did not appear to have sentience, or did not exist at all, she then asked how Hunter knew about dragons, which led to him telling her all about his favourite video game, ‘SPYRO’. This shocked the rest of the rooms occupants to silence, as they struggled to understand a world so different to theirs, but eventually Rarity snapped them out of it, deciding to take Hunter’s measurements, and designing him some clothes, while Fluttershy and Twilight asked him about his family, at which point Hunter released a bit of a bombshell, when he admitted “my mum passed away last year from cancer, but my dad says that he will find me a new mother, who will love me just as much, I just didn’t realise that this meant he would go away to” and then he started crying, all the mares found themselves, almost instinctively running over to the child, to offer him the consolation, Fluttershy was somewhat surprised when Angel also joined in the hugging, but took it in her stride and hugged what she realised now really was, for all intents and purposes, her new son. Eventually hunter stopped crying and said he was hungry. Fluttershy said she would cook them all something to eat, and would give hunter some of the fish that a friendly cat caught from a nearby pond whenever she was looking after meat eating animals. Rarity and Twilight meanwhile, were talking about how to introduce Hunter to the rest of the town, eventually deciding that a Pinkie Pie party would probably be the least threatening, to either group, way of introducing a new sentient creature to their neighbours. Fluttershy soon finished cooking, giving Hunter vegetables and fish, while she and her friends had daisy sandwiches. Her friends told her their plan, and she agreed after thinking it over, and they made plans to introduce Hunter to their friends tomorrow, and have a party at the end of the week to introduce him to the rest of the village, with Rarity saying she would ask her sister and her friends to come to, as they were almost exactly the same age to Hunter. The friends decided to wrap it up when Hunter started yawning loudly, rubbing his eyes to stay awake, but fighting and obviously losing a fight with the sandman. Twilight set up Hunter’s new bed in the living room, remarking that Fluttershy would have to get some builder ponies to put an additional room on her house. Then Rarity and she left, promising to meet there in the morning for breakfast, along with their friends and the cutie mark crusaders. Fluttershy tucked Hunter in, and then went off to her bed room, where she settled into her own bed, and deciding to read a romance novel, to take her mind of the events of the day, a she was so excited, she hadn’t woken up that morning expecting to become a mother, but now she was. Then she heard a knock on her door, when she said come in, Hunter walked in and said “please don’t be mad at me, but I'm really scared and I don’t want to be by myself, can I sleep with you”, Fluttershy smiled and nodded, shuffling slightly to the left so that Hunter could fit in her bed, when he crawled in he hugged her again, which she returned willingly, and then he rolled onto his side and started falling asleep, but not before asking “Fluttershy, are you my new mother”, Fluttershy whispered “yes”, to which hunter just nodded happily and dozed off. Fluttershy turned off her light, and smiled, her last word going through her head.
Brand New Day-Chapter 2Hunter woke, yawning loudly, he reached up to place a hand over his mouth, when he encountered a large, moving mass of fur, Hunter screamed, causing the mass to stir, and then say “Hunter shh, it’s going to be alright”. Hunter recalled the events of the previous day, and smiled, as he now remembered that his new mother had allowed him to sleep in her bed. The human child then proceeded to get up, scratching his face as he did so, after having given his new mother a big “good morning” hug, relishing being able to do so. Then Hunter felt the morning chill, and shivered quite noticeably, before grabbing a blanket of the nearby bed and wrapping himself in it. He stood stretching as Fluttershy got out of the bed, slipping quietly out from under the covers and joining him at looking around her room, the sunlight streaming in thanks to Celestia, painting everything in a bright, cheerful light. Hunter looked at Fluttershy, who was smiling radiantly back at him, her small stature for an adult, in his experience at least, made him smile, as he realised that it would not be long before he was more than equal to her in height, which was always a goal of his, to be taller than authority figures, no matter how sweet and caring they were. A knocking woke Hunter from his thoughts, so he wandered down to the door of his new home, greeting Angel, as he passed the rabbit’s bed. Upon opening the door he saw his new dragon friend Spike looking at him, while panting loudly, having, it appeared, just run all the way from his house. When Spike got his voice back, he said “everypony that Twilight thinks you should meet is coming in an hour, where going to have a picnic in the park nearby, you’ll get to meet all of her friends, as well as the cutiemark crusaders, who are always good for some fun, but anyway twilight got me to bring you these”, and produced some clothes from a bag he was carrying, the clothes matching what Hunter had described to Rarity the previous night almost perfectly, except the shoes, which he saw were made out of cotton, and were very similar to Vans, a brand of shoes he had seen lots of older kids where. Lacking any modest, mainly as Spike was already naked in front of him, he dropped the blanket he had been using for warmth, and placed the clothes on, glad when the fit well. Spike then said “do you wanna play Frisbee”, and took a plastic disk out of the same bag, to which Hunter nodded eagerly in response, before thinking and saying “yeah definitely, but I think I might have to ask my mum first”, Hunter smiled inwardly, happy to have been able to call Fluttershy his mum in front of somebody else. Spike just looked confused, right up to when Fluttershy walked up to the two boys, and said “sure Hunter, you can play with Spike, just remember to not get to dirty”, at which point a look of comprehension appeared on his face, as he realised who Hunter had been referring to, and smiled, happy his new younger friend was happy. They both walked out to Fluttershy’s garden, where Spike threw the Frisbee to Hunter who caught it deftly in his hand, on seeing this Spike said “oh Celestia, you have no idea how good it’s going to be having someone else with thumbs to play with”, they chatted like this for a little while, describing their worlds to each other. When Hunter asked “do you guys have guitars here” he was very excited when Spike nodded in the affirmative, and explained “I’ve been playing since I was six, my dad taught me, but I was worried you guys didn’t have them here”. Spike told him about Ponyville’s music store, which he was sure would be able to provide him with a guitar, and was about to ask him whether he thought Fluttershy would let him get a guitar, when lo and behold, who should walk out of her house, but that very mare. Hunter turned to his new mother and said “do you think I could get a guitar, I played with my dad all the time, and he said I was good”, Fluttershy replied “yes, that should be fine, and I'm sure we could find somebody to continue your lessons”. After she said this, Twilight and Rarity arrived, with lots of ponies hunter didn’t know, three fillies, and three adult mares, all six of them stopped chatting, and just stared at Hunter, who meanwhile stared at a, what he thought was very pretty, orange and purple Pegasus, having only given the rest of them a quick glance. The six new pony’s thoughts were summed up by one of the fillies, a yellow coat one with a big red bow on her neck, who said “what in tarnation is that Fluttershy, and why have yah got it all dressed up, frou frou like”. Hunter was insulted, fairly sure that he had just been called an animal, by the smaller pony, so he took it upon himself to introduce himself to them, and exclaimed “why, I am human, an alien creature, who has been stranded in this strange land, (he was pretty much stating word for word, the way an astronaut had introduced himself to little green men on mars, in a book his father once read him) all alone, I wear clothes, because, unlike you, I have not got a coat, and so require it for warmth, and protection”, and bowed respectively, then he and spiked started giggling, which caused the rest of the group to start laughing, surprised by the way this unknown creature had introduced himself. Rarity meanwhile, was looking on with a smile, quite happy with how her good friends new son presented himself to others, Twilight however was somewhat surprised, unable to understand that it was a joke, she started to think that this was how he always acted, and yesterday he had just been suffering from shock. Twilight’s thoughts were soon proved wrong, when the young boy threw his Frisbee, missing Spike in a obviously purposeful manner, and instead hitting Scootaloo, who looked in confusion at the disk which had just hit her, but then Hunter cried out, “tag your it”, and ran off, with Spike in tow, The CTC looked after them and then quickly gathered in a group and whispered quietly to each other, before disbanding and shouting “Cutiemark Crusader Human Hunters, Yay” and ran after the rapidly fleeing human and dragon. The adult ponies watched this with some amusement, before, finally, Applejack said “Fluttershy, I think you have some explaining to do, to which Fluttershy agreed, and told them all of what had transpired yesterday. As her friends listened closely, when they heard that Hunter was now her legally adopted son, they all reacted differently. Pinkie Pie, needless to say, immediately started talking about a party; too introduce Hunter to the town. Applejack just nodded, accepting it as something Fluttershy would do. Rainbow Dash however acted differently, saying “so you just met, and you adopted him, just like that?”, Fluttershy responded “yes”, to which Rainbow Dash said “look, you’ve given me a lot to think about, I’ll introduce myself to him at the party”, and she flew off. When Rainbow Dash flew off, the friends remarked at how strange this was, except for a certain Stetson wearing Earth Pony, who was fully aware of what Rainbow Dash, was talking about, and where she was probably going. The five mares wondered over to the meadow in which the five children were playing chasey, with Hunter now running after the three fillies, and spike lying exhausted on the ground. The adults gathered around a picnic basket that Pinkie had brought, filled with baked goods from the bakery, Cupcakes, cakes, muffins, and all other baked deliciousnesses, as well as some warm hot chocolate. Hunter turned on seeing this display and ran over to the picnic basket, and went to Fluttershy, saying “mum can I please have a cupcake, it’s for scientific reasons” while smiling in a reassuring manner, “scientific reasons?” she replied. “Yeah, I figure that I should probably find out if you make them like they do where I came from” he responded, in what he hoped was a knowing way. Fluttershy said “ok” so he grabbed the nearest chocolate flavoured desert, and ran back to his friends, holding his cupcake in his hand. Her friends all cooed at the adorable manner in how Hunter was really treating Fluttershy, like his mother, but then Rarity spoke up, saying “he is really quite delightful dear, but I fear those citizens with less open mindedness will find it hard to accept him into their society”, to which Fluttershy replied “I guess we really should have that party, what do you think Pinkie Pie”. Turning to her pink friends, who, meanwhile, was setting up her welcome wagon, then Pinkie turned to her friends and said “oh, I'm sure it will be fine, everybody should get along, even that grumpy donkey and everything, just because he’s different doesn’t mean they won’t accept him, I'm sure a lot of them learnt their lesson after what happened with Zecora” and then continued with setting up her wagon. By now the other young creatures, had all seen the food that was on display, and had run over with Hunter, begging for food. Fluttershy asked the three fillies “did you guys introduce yourselves”, to which they shook their heads and turned to Hunter, Scootaloo said “hi I'm Scootaloo, it’s nice to meet you”, then Applebloom introduced herself “it’s awful nice to meet you, your pretty fun for a strange creature” and finally Sweetie Bell introduced herself saying “it brings me great joy to make your acquaintance” in a prim and proper fashion. And then they all sat down, and had cake. Twilight watched this interaction, which gave her some hope for the future, and then decided to see if she could find out any more about where Hunter came from. She asked him “so did you have ponies where you came from”, to which hunter replied, after swallowing a mouthful of cake, “yeah, kinda, we had ponies, but they were a lot bigger than you, and coloured normally, but they didn’t have wings or horns, or both, by the way, whats up with that” what followed was a quick explanation by Twilight, in which she explained, how they all had magic and how they used it differently. Then Hunter asked something that had been nagging him for a while “why do all the adults have tattoos in the same place on their butt”, to which Twilight replied “firstly, it’s called our flank, but anyway, those are our cutiemarks, they tell us what were good at, you only get them once you’ve found out what it is”. Scootaloo was shocked, thinking she knew what this meant, and asked “Hunter, do you mean to say that humans never get their cutiemark, no matter how many things they do”, Hunter nodded his head, and said “yeah, why is that a bad thing”. Fluttershy was worried about where this was going, and so decided to change the subject back to where Hunter came from, and she asked “so Hunter, did they have magic on earth”, hunter shook his head and said “no but our technology was a lot more advanced, and we invented machines that could allow us to fly”, this last part earned a look from pinkie, who was an amateur enthusiast in the area of flight technologies, having created a helicopter-like device that she used to fly through the air. Pinkie then began to sing her welcome song, and then shot tons of streamers into the air, and produced a cake, which said “Welcome to Equestria” on it, from her wagon’s oven. All the ponies, Spike, and Hunter, took a piece, and they all sat on the large picnic rug eating, Spike and Hunter using their fingers to put the cake in their mouths, while the ponies just ate with their mouths. Hunter finished his cake quickly, and watched his new friends eat, then started laughing when Fluttershy looked up at him, as her muzzle was completely covered in cake. The other ponies all looked up at him, all of them with cake all over their face, which just made Hunter laugh louder, before he eventually gasped out “sorry, but watching you guys eat cake is hilarious” and then started laughing again. The others just looked at each other, before realising he was talking about the cake on their face, and started laughing to. After this, Applejack and Pinkie Pie introduced themselves to Hunter, who was throwing the Frisbee with Spike again, while the cutiemark crusaders looked on with utter fascination at how easy they made it look, as the ponies where used to playing the game with their mouths, which made it a lot more difficult. Eventually the group decided it was time to go, so everybody but Twilight and Spike left, with the three girls promising to come over the next day, and Pinkie Pie saying that the party would be three days from now, deciding a surprise party would be a bad idea, as the people who were aware of the party would probably be the most surprised, not Hunter. While Spike and Hunter played Frisbee, Twilight began speaking quietly to Fluttershy, saying, “would you mind if I asked Hunter some questions, I really need to find out what happened with his father”, Fluttershy said “ok, do you want to spend the night, I think if we played a game or something he would be more likely to open up to us, and I'm sure he would love to have Spike sleepover,” she asked hopefully “I have a spare bed, and the couch folds out, so it would be no trouble” she continued. Twilight agreed that it was probably the best idea, so she nodded her head. Meanwhile, Spike and Hunter had begun listening to their conversation, and high fived each other when Twilight said yes, they both looked at their hands after this, having just realised what they had done, before eventually Hunter spoke “that was awesome, I just high fived a dragon”, at which Spike chuckled, and agreed. They walked back to Fluttershy’s house, where Angel was standing out the front, tapping his foot expectantly, then pointed to his wrist, and then to his stomach, Hunter walked into the house and started making the rabbit a salad, and once finished walked out and gave it to him. Hunter walked over to the draw filled with games that Fluttershy had gotten Monopony from the night before, and pulled out Cluedo, surprised again by the similarities between his world and this one. When he turned around, Cluedo in hand, Twilight gasped, while Spike chuckled and explained “that’s her favourite board game, I think it’s mainly because it’s the one that’s least about luck”. Happy that his choice had been right, Hunter placed the game on the floor and began setting it up with Spike’s help. Fluttershy walked over to Hunter, Twilight alongside her, and asked “could you please write down what foods you can eat, I don’t think it would be healthy eating fish and cake all the time”, handing him a piece of paper with a pen on it, Hunter responded, “well actually, I eat most things, in fact, the only thing I can’t really eat, is grass and leaves, the rest, unless its poisonous, is fine, but yeah, some meat would be nice tonight, but I don’t have to have any, it’s just , I think that I can’t just live on fish alone”. Fluttershy and Twilight looked at each other, wondering what they should do, Fluttershy was thinking of the few times she had nursed carnivorous creatures, and how she’d had to find recently killed animals, and take meat from them, while Twilight was thinking about the fact that they knew so very little about the actual act of cooking with meat. Hunter saw the two concentrating on their thoughts and began to believe he had done something wrong, and said “look it’s alright I will eat fish, I'm okay with it,”, Twilight responded “no, it’s fine dear, we just had not really thought about this yet, I’m sure we can think of something, in fact I have an idea, in Canterlot, they have a griffin butcher, who’s customers are all the visiting dignitaries of others countries, I'm sure he could easily supply us with meat, especially if we get the princesses to ask him”. Fluttershy nodded, then realised “Hunter, you eat cooked meat right?” She asked, to which he said “yes”, and Fluttershy continued “it’s just; I don’t think that I can cook meat, the very idea makes me feel sick”. Hunter responded “that’s alright, I can actually cook pretty decently, my dad always said that a person should be able to cook for themselves, so he taught me how, in fact how about tonight I make dinner, and from now on, unless I want something you can eat, I’ll cook for myself”. Fluttershy responded quickly “no you can’t possibly do that, I'm your mother, I should cook for you” but Hunter just reassured her, saying “no it’s fine really, I like to cook, it’ll be fun”. Having sorted out this, Fluttershy relaxed, as it had actually been worrying her since the night before, cooking the fish had really not been easy, as she kept thinking how she was cooking something that had been alive only a small time before, but now she was relaxed. Hunter had walked into the kitchen, and began putting together vegetables for a roast, while cutting up some fruits for dessert, and then he placed the vegetables in the oven. He wandered back into the living room, where he saw Twilight and Fluttershy talking quietly, and looking at him, at which point spike came over and said “they want to talk to you about something serious, but they don’t want to ask, as they don’t want to make you sad”. Hunter nodded, and walked slowly over to them and said “look whatever you want to talk about, I'm okay with, I trust you guys, and if it’s something you need to know, it’s something you need to know”, Twilight responded “Hunter, I'm sorry but I have to ask, what do you remember about what happened with your father”. Hunter looked sad for a moment, but straightened up and said “okay, a few days ago, it was take your kids to work day, at the laboratory my dad works at, and so he had let me come, we were in this big room, filled with machines, when one of them turned on, suddenly, and started shooting around the room, hitting people, it was about to hit me, when my dad jumped in front of me, but he just disappeared and it hit me, and then I found myself in the gardens” the last part about his father he said haltingly, “well your father sounds like a hero, why are you so sad” Twilight asked, noticing Hunter’s saddened demeanour. Hunter said, sitting down, “it’s just, I think my father could have survived if I just moved out of the way, but I didn’t and now he’s gone, and it’s all my fault” and started sobbing. Fluttershy came over and hugged him tightly, and said “no hunter, it wasn’t your fault, it was somepony else’s fault, and even then it was an accident, and besides, sometimes people make mistakes, but when you do, you just have to get over them”, Hunter nodded, still crying but not sobbing any longer. Twilight and Spike joined in, with Spike saying “anyway, if that hadn’t happened, I wouldn’t have a new friend”. They stayed like that for a while, enjoying the comfortable warmth the closeness brought, when Hunter remembered the vegetables, and burst out from the middle of the group hug, raced into the kitchen, and pulled out the vegetables, which much to his surprise, were cooked perfectly. They ate, with everybody commenting on Hunter’s cooking ability, which caused him to blush slightly, before saying “see I told you I could cook”. They all agreed, before finishing the fruit salad he had made. Hunter saw Twilight move the spare bed out of the cupboard and set it up in the living room, with her magic, needless to say, it blew his mind, this being the first time he had seen a unicorn use magic, while everybody else just laughed at his reaction. Spike and Hunter went to bed, while Twilight and Fluttershy went outside, saying they wanted to see the stars, and smiled at each other, as if sharing a joke. Hunter and Spike became suspicious, so they snuck outside, where Hunter gasped loudly, as he swathe unexpected sight before him, Twilight, Fluttershy and Princess Luna, nuzzling each other, with Fluttershy and Twilight either side of Luna. Fluttershy, used to looking after small animals, and therefore always listening out for very soft sounds, heard the gasp and turned around, then said “oh, oh my” and fainted. Second Chapter, Better than the first? Again, first story, still learning, so any advice is good. Plus, I'm pretty happy with how this chapter turned out as it's my main explain each other's worlds chapter, which is why it took me ages, lots of things to decide. If you guys like this chapter say so, I'm thinking of redoing the first, so any thoughts on what is good in either, stuff like that
What To Do With Scootaloo-Side ChapterShort sweet chapter, doesn't actually contain hunter, and occurs on the same day as the previous chapter Rainbow Dash flew away from her friends gathering, thinking on what Fluttershy had done, adopting somebody they had just met, merely because they were an orphan. Dash landed on a cloud, lay down, and thought about her own childhood, filled with sadness on how her parents had died when she was a young filly, and how she had grown up in an orphanage all by herself, with no one to help her, all alone. She had realised, along time ago, that the only way to find love was to make everybody happy, and the only way she could think of to do that was to do acts of awesomeness, aweing people into loving and respecting her. No one more so was affected by these acts than her number one fan Scootaloo, who was an orphan, having grown up without her parents after a rogue dragon had killed them as they travelled near Ponyville. Rainbow Dash yawned and continued to think, she knew all this, but still she couldn’t bring herself to do anything about it, she liked Scootaloo, but she just wasn’t sure if she could really be a mother, and so had just decided to be a good role model to her. But Fluttershy’s actions had thrown this idea to the wind, she realised now she was just scared, but what could she do, it wasn’t as if Scootaloo wanted her as a mother, or was it. Then the rainbow maned Pegasus rolled onto her side, and fell asleep. Scootaloo was wondering home, with her friends, thinking on what they planned to do with Hunter, their new friend, and how great it was going to be when he started going to school. She looked up into the sky, and noticed her favourite Pegasus was sleeping on a rapidly dissipating cloud, she shouted out, waking rainbow dash, who looked at her cloud and flew up, narrowly avoiding a very nasty wake up call. She looked to the person who had woken her up, happy to see her friend, but annoyed by the confused feeling she brought up in the older mare, of maternal instincts and loyalty, but also of fear and sadness. She flew down to give her thanks, to which Scootaloo said “no its alright, I'm sure you would have done the same for me”. Noticing how happy Scootaloo was to even talk to her, she came to a decision and said to the rest of the cutiemark crusaders “girls could you give us a minute, I want to talk to Scootaloo about something”, they nodded their heads and continued on. Scootaloo looked at Rainbow Dash, who was looking at her with a expression that the young filly hadn’t seen in a long time, of love. Rainbow Dash said “honey, I want to ask, what did you think of Hunter and Fluttershy’s relationship, would you like something similar”. Scootaloo, gasped on realising what Rainbow Dash meant, and began doing the Yes dance, that she had first seen performed by Twilight Sparkle, when they asked about her cutiemark. Dash looked on in happy amusement, as the purple maned, orange furred Pegasus danced around in front of her, showing to be quite adept at it. When Scootaloo came to her senses, she saw Rainbow on the floor laughing; this caused her considerable sadness as she began to think it had been a prank. She got back onto her Scooter and raced of, eyes filling with tears. Rainbow was shocked by this, she wasn’t sure what she had done wrong, and she just thought that Scootaloo looked so funny, so she had started laughing. She raced after the younger pony, rapidly approaching the grounded Pegasus, who was giving all she had to get away, not even noticing were she was going, but Rainbow Dash did. She was headed towards a cliff that overlooked Ponyville. Rainbow Dash started going even faster, hoping to catch up in time, encountering the wind barrier, which she now looked on as an old foe, she pushed against, and broke through, creating a giant rainboom, the force of which blasted outwards. She flew towards Scootaloo, who was pushed by the rainboom, over the cliff, and started falling; Rainbow Dash reached the edge of the cliff, and dived straight towards the younger Pegasus, who was screaming loudly. She dove, and just as Scootaloo was about to hit the ground, she caught her, and straightened out, racing just above the ground, trying to lose momentum. The younger Pegasus’s beloved scooter, however was not as lucky, hitting the ground with a huge, unexplainable, explosion. Eventually, Rainbow Dash slowed enough to be able to look at Scootaloo, who was looking up at her, her eyes as big as plates, “you saved me, after pulling such a cruel prank, you saved me, why?” she asked. Rainbow alighted on a nearby cloud, and placed the Pegasus down, “firstly, of course I would save you, I'm loyal to my friends, and you just so happen to be one of them, and secondly what prank” she asked confused and angry, with herself or Scootaloo she wasn’t quite sure. “You know, the one where you were offering to adopt me, and then laughed at me when I got excited”, she said, looking at Rainbow Dash with daggers in her eyes. Rainbow Dash trotted over to her younger charge, with an expression of surprise quite clear on her face, saying “Scootaloo, that wasn’t a prank, I honestly want to adopt you, I know how bad it is being an orphan, and just seeing how happy Hunter was today, made me realise just how easily I could give someone I care about the same happiness”. Scootaloo started crying, and sobbed out “you care about me”, to which Rainbow Dash responded, “of course I do Scootaloo, now let’s go see the mayor about me adopting you as my daughter”. She picked up Scootaloo in her arms, and hugged her, then headed towards the mayor’s office. They arrived, landing on the mayors office’s porch, Rainbow Dash opened the doors, while Scootaloo, danced around with excitement. The mayor was sitting at her desk, eating a daisie sandwich, munching quietly, and looking at them with something along the lines of calm acceptance, as if people walked through her 2nd story outside door every day. “Rainbow Dash wants to adopt me”, Scootaloo yelled, bursting with excitement, to which the mayor, pulled a draw behind her open, pulled out a large document, and an ink pad, and then said, “okay, place a hoof print here, here, here, and here, please Rainbow Dash”, pointing at random points on the document. Rainbow Dash complied, dipping her hoof on the ink pad, and then signing the paper, before wiping her hoof on a cloth the mayor provided, the mayor then put her own hoof print on the paper and said “alright she is now your daughter, any clothing or other personal items will be removed from the orphanage by tomorrow. Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo thanked the mayor, and left, Scootaloo in Rainbow Dash’s arms as she flew towards her, or now, their home. Rainbow Dash spent the rest of the day building a partition on to her home, extending it with a new room for Scootaloo, while the younger filly offered directions, more of hindrance than a help, which led too many ridiculous placing’s of walls, beds, wardrobes and other particulars, but all in good fun. They tried to make dinner together, both finding out that the other had absolutely no cooking skills, and so Rainbow Dash flew to a nearby Prance patisserie and got them both croissants, and hot chocolates, before bringing it back and eating it with her new daughter. They went to bed, with Scootaloo sleeping in her new cloud bed, while Rainbow Dash watched her sleep for a little while, before going to bed herself. Scootaloo woke the next morning, refreshed and happy, and got out of bed, wandering into Rainbow Dashes room; she looked for her new mother, but couldn’t find her. She walked into the kitchen, were she found a note, which said “good morning Scoots, I’m sorry I couldn’t be there to see you wake up on your first day with me, but I have to work, have a good day go play with your friends, I’ll see you later, maybe we could get lunch together, love Rainbow”. Scootaloo was a little sad, but she knew people have to work, so she understood, and besides, she always had a good time with her friends, maybe they should go see Hunter, and bring spike along she thought. She opened Rainbows front door, when she realised, she couldn’t leave, as she wasn’t a good enough flyer yet, and with a big breath she did the only thing she could think of, and yelled “RAINBOW DASH” Rate Review do what ever you want do
What is Love?-Chapter TriFluttershy lay on the ground her two marefriends looking worriedly at her, Luna poked her lightly, which made Fluttershy stir and say “no, please, no, I just want to lay here and die”. Luna looked over at the young human she had met the day before as well as Spike, both of whom were looking very embarrassed. Hunter was the first to speak, scratching his head in a self-conscious manner saying “I’m sorry for stumbling on you like this, and for acting so shocked, it’s just where I come from, it’s usually just females and males who kiss each other, and even then it’s usually just between two”. Luna and Twilight blushed vividly at this, while behind Hunter, Spike face palmed, and started speaking saying “we really have to tell you more about how this place works, anyways, mares kiss and stuff all the time, as theirs a lot less stallions than mares in Equestria, so not everybody would have love, unless they looked at their own gender, and love between three people is not that unusual, although there is usually at least one stallion involved”, he said, as if reciting something he had been told repeatedly, and, judging by the look he gave Twilight, who went even redder than before, he was quoting her. Hunter nodded “okay, cool, um, whys she lying on the ground then” he continued. Twilight cleared her throat and said “oh she’s just naturally shy, and didn’t want anybody to know about our relationship, I believe it’s because dating a princesses in a trio is unusual, no matter how you look at it, but I love them both, and Luna loves us both, and Fluttershy loves both of us, equally”. Luna understanding more than she let on, then said “Hunter, please understand Fluttershy loving us doesn’t mean she won’t love you any less”. Fluttershy was listening to her marefriends talk about her and got up, her love’s words giving her strength. Fluttershy turned to her son and said “honey, I love you, I really do, I haven’t known you long, but in that time, you have shown yourself to have an inner strength that I am very jealous of, but I love these two differently, and besides, you can easily look on them as substitute mothers” to which Twilight and Luna nodded their heads. Hunter laughed and said “ok cool, just please understand, I love you Fluttershy, anything you do is alright with me, so please don’t keep secrets from me, it hurt a little, I’ll be honest”, Fluttershy gasped at this, and said “oh no, I'm so sorry for hurting you, I didn’t even think, oh please forgive me”, and raced over and hugged him. Hunter said quietly “of course I forgive you, now I'm going back to bed” and having said so, slowly freed himself from his mother’s grasp and walked back inside with Spike, who once they were in the house, started laughing his head off. Luna looked at her two marefriends, and said “that went alright, maybe we can tell everybody now”, causing Fluttershy to faint, again. Twilight and Luna kissed each other, and then looked over at their third, giggling, they dragged her to the nearby meadow; to continue were they had stopped when Hunter interrupted them. Hunter awoke the next day, refreshed, to the smell of cooking eggs; he raced into the kitchen, where he found Luna making scrambled eggs. Seeing the regal mare making what he could only assume was breakfast, made Hunter laugh, causing Luna, who was concentrating strongly on her task, to drop the pan she was holding with magic in shock, and turn around, to see Hunter with an extremely bemused expression on his angelic face, his smile filling most of it. Luna looked at him seriously and said “thy does no not, what thy has done” and picked up a nearby fly swatter, and began chasing the young human through the house, while both laughed madly. Needless to say, this activity soon woke the rest of the household, with both of them getting yelled at by the three others, while they just giggled. Hunter smiled when he saw his new friend, as he had thought of something fun they could do that day, and walked over to him and said “morning Spike, do you wanna go fishing today”, to which Spike replied, rubbing sleep out of his eyes, “fishing?”, Hunter gasped, and said “you know fishing, where you catch a fish with a rod, wait, don’t tell me you guys don’t fish”. Spike looked at his friend, slightly more aware and said “nah, apparently griffins and stuff usually just catch fish with nets, what’s a rod”; Hunter said “it’s a stick with some string on it and a hook on the end of the string”. Spike nodded and said “sure sounds like fun, I'm willing to give it a go”. Suddenly there was a rapid knocking on the door, Fluttershy trotted over to it, and opened it, somewhat surprised when she was immediately accosted by a small purple and orange Pegasus filly, which was saying “thank you, thank you thank you” over and over again. Luna walked out of the kitchen, and noticed the small filly now lying on top of Fluttershy while hugging her tightly, she looked at Twilight and winked before saying “wow that reminds me of last night, huh Twilight?” Fluttershy blushed, while the rest of them just laughed, even Scootaloo, who by then had calmed down. She laughed until it occurred to her that she didn’t know why she was laughing, “Hey, I don’t get it, why would you and Twilight have been….” she began to ask, before trailing of at the end, as she realised why. Scootaloo looked at the three of them staring in shock, before finally Twilight said “yes that’s right Scootaloo, Luna, Fluttershy and I are together now, and have been for the last few months, since nightmare night, we’ve just been keeping it a secret, but decided to tell everybody, after Hunter and Spike found out”. A quiet “I didn’t” came out from Fluttershy, under Scootaloo, and Luna responded “we put it to a vote and you lost, besides, look how well she’s taking it”, pointing at Scootaloo, who at that moment fell onto her side, dead to the world. Hunter looked at the three adult mares, and said “hey I think you broke my new friend”, and walked over to her, before bending down and poking her wings, which for some reason sprouted outwards, as if his hands had shocked her, Scootaloo leapt up and fled to the other side of the room. Everybody else gasped, and Fluttershy said “no Hunter, don’t do that, it’s impolite to touch a Pegasus’s wings, unless she asks you”, and then after a look from Twilight and Luna, she continued “oh and a unicorn’s horn is as well”. Hunter looked apologetically towards Scootaloo and reached out his hand, before saying “sorry I didn’t know, please forgive me”, and walked over to Scootaloo, who responded “of course I do, it would be mean not to, if you didn’t know it’s not your fault”, then they hugged. Twilight spoke up “so why the visit Scootaloo, you seem very enthusiastic about something this morning”, Scootaloo blushed having evidently forgotten why she had come in the first place, and then said “well, after Rainbow Dash saw how you had adopted Hunter yesterday, she decided to adopt me, and so now I have a new mum too, thanks to what you did Fluttershy, so I wanted to come say thank you”. Fluttershy nodded and said “that’s okay honey, I’m just glad that finally happened”. Luna looked at the rest of the occupants of the room, before saying “well I don’t know about you guys, but I’m pretty hungry”, the casualness that she was displaying shocked Scootaloo, again, and she fainted, again. Scootaloo awoke, finding herself lying in Fluttershy’s bed, while the owner of the bed held some smelling salts under her nose. Fluttershy noticed that she was awake, greeted her and said “sweetie, Hunter and Spike are going to catch fish, but I don’t think you would enjoy that, so why don’t you go tell your friends about Rainbow Dash, I’m sure they’ll be glad to hear it”. Scootaloo nodded, and got out of the bed, the young Pegasus found herself surrounded by the worried looks of the other ponies, as well as Spike and Hunter, but on seeing her standing easily they smiled. Hunter said “Spike and me are going to go now, I have to show him how to do everything, it’s going to be a lot of fun”, and with that he and Spike left, walking towards a nearby stream, after acquiring a chopping board, a bucket and a knife. Hunter showed Spike the ropes, and happily found that the lake in which they were fishing had many fish in it, allowing him to actually show why he so enjoyed fishing. However, he soon found that Spike had never actually killed an animal before, and his new friend was visibly sickened when Hunter stabbed a small trout like fish in the head. Hunter reassured Spike, saying “don’t worry, they don’t think, so there’s nothing wrong with this, and besides Spike, I have to eat, and I don’t want Fluttershy to have to hurt any of her animal friends”, Spike nodded his head, and even though he did join in the fishing he absolutely refused to be the one that killed them. Eventually he and Spike began just leaving the rods in the water, and mucking around besides the lake, chatting and playing games, in the greenery, while basking in the sunlight raining down upon them. Spike and Hunter lay down, under the shade of a tree, near the river, watching the water slow move by. Hunter decided that he should ask before he did something wrong, and so enquired about interspecies relationships. Spike reacted embarrassed, before realising that he himself was in much same situation with Rarity, and explained, “well, it is actually pretty accepted, I mean, it’s not an everyday thing, but griffins and ponies get together pretty often, and dragons sometimes do with ponies, however this can only be when their younger, as when they get bigger, it apparently just wouldn’t work, for some reason”. Hunter nodded before saying “oh I bet that’s because of sex”, Spike looked over at him and asked “what’s that, I’ve always wondered, but Twilight won’t tell me, which is really hypocritical, she has tonnes of books on it locked in a safe under her bed”. Hunter responded, “it’s were two adults get naked and wrestle, because it feels good, my dad said it expresses their love, after I saw him and my mum doing it once, how it does, I really don’t know”. Spike then asked “why did you want to know about that anyway”, Hunter blushed and responded, “oh no reason”. Spike nudged him and said “is it something to do with an orange and purple Pegasus, hmmm”, causing Hunter to blush even more, which made Spike laugh and start rolling around on the ground, while saying “I knew, I knew it”. Hunter responded “well I think you like Rarity, I saw how you were acting around her, but isn’t she a bit old for you, she’s what, 23 and you’re like my age”, Spike responded “nah she’s only 21 and I'm 16 it’s not that big a difference”. Hunter looked over at Spike in confusion, and question, “how are you 16 you’re so small”, Spike’s nostrils flared, “no I'm not I'm the exact right height for a dragon of my age, in fact I'm actually 2 centimares taller than I should be” he huffed angrily. Hunter apologised saying “sorry I didn’t know” and then paused for a bit and smiled ruefully before continuing “I guess I'm going to have to get used to saying that”, and started laughing which started Spike laughing, and they both rolled over in the dirt under the tree. They made a small meal, using Spike’s fire to cook his fish, while his friend shocked Hunter by eating some quarts rocks they found near the river, saying they tasted like marshmallows, only slightly crunchier. Eventually the two friends grew tired of fishing, just as the sun started going down, they headed back towards Fluttershy’s cottage, where they found Twilight and Luna making themselves dinner, visibly sickened by the sight of numerous dead fish in the bucket, which Hunter quickly put it in the, magically powered fridge, the fact that it was magically powered he learnt from Twilight, who saw him stare at the fridge, trying to figure out its secrets. Both mares relaxed slightly when Hunter had put the bucket away, but Fluttershy noticeably mentioned getting a second fridge for that kind of thing, “as soon as possible”. Twilight was happy when she noticed how tired the two boys were from there day, and was glad that Hunter and Spike had become fast friends in such a short time, as she knew that Spike had really been yearning for some company of his own mental age, that weren’t female, like the cutiemark crusaders. She began to wonder if maybe Spike should start going to school with Miss Cheerilee, with kids his own age, she knew she could easily teach Spike all he would learn their, and that the dragon probably already knew it, but the social interactions that a child needed was something which spike was surely lacking. Twilight wandered over to Spike, and was somewhat shocked when her young charge said “hey Twilight, me and Hunter were talking, and we want to know if I could go to school with him, he’s a little worried about going by himself, and I think it could be fun”, she just nodded, happy she hadn’t had to be the one to broach the idea with him. The two young boys high fived again, which just caused their smiles to grow brighter, still unused to, in Hunter’s case high fiving a dragon, and in Spike case, high fiving at all. Twilight said “ok Spike if you really want to, but don’t expect me to cut you any slack just because you might already know what your being taught, I will expect all homework to be done promptly, that goes for you to hunter, all though I expect you to actually pay attention, as you'll be learning all you need to know about equestrian society”, to which she got a response of some half-hearted “okays”. Twilight and Fluttershy sat down, and ate dinner, while the two boys went over some ‘Daring Do’ comics that Spike had brought along the night before. Eventually, it occurred to Hunter he had seen something similar, especially the one about the crystal skull, on TV, and voiced this opinion, Spike just looked at his friend and said “what’s TV?” Hunter gasped, the fact that there was no TV only occurring to him then, he collapsed to the floor on his knees and shouted “NOOOOOOO”. Read, Rate, Review, Do what ever you want to do.
I'm Howling at the Moon-Chapter QuatroSorry this took so long, and for any confusion the previous chapter might have caused, I couldn't really figure it out, and then my Internet died. OOOOOOOOOO” and Hunter fell over, silently screaming into Fluttershy’s carpet. The owner of the carpet walked over to were Spike was poking her still screaming son with a claw, and asked, “what’s wrong”, to which Spike responded “something about, TV, whatever that is, I think he’s upset it doesn’t exist here”. Twilight walked over to Hunter and said “Hunter, what’s TV?”, causing the young human to look up with his tear stained eyes, and whisper one word, “glorious”, before collapsing back down and crying. They left him there, watching as he slowly calmed down, until the point where he got up and apologised for his outbreak, and said “sorry about that, I just miss home, you know, it’s not that this place is bad, it’s just so different, and I’m still not really used to it”. Fluttershy hugged him and said “don’t worry, you'll get used to it”, while Twilight grabbed Spike and said “yeah it’s getting kind of late, I think Spike and I should go, goodbye guys, we’ll see you at the party tomorrow”, Spike said “goodbye, thanks for showing me how to fish”, and the two left, Spike riding Twilight. “Fluttershy, do you think I’m ever going to fit in here?” Hunter quietly asked, after their friends had gone, “of course you will, Hunter, just remember, this is where you belong now, as surely as if you had been born here”, Fluttershy responded reassuringly. “Come on, it’s time for bed, we have a big day tomorrow, you’re going to meet all of Ponyville”, she said, and they both got up. Hunter was tucked in by Fluttershy, who kissed his forehead, and then went off to bed herself. Hunter awoke, to a pink pony, looking right at him, her face pressed to his, eye to eye, so he yelled, waking screaming for the second time recently. Suddenly, the pink pony, which he now realised, was Pinkie Pie, shouted out “let’s party,” and quieted down, before saying “I need your help”, Hunter stared for a second before slurring out “why”. Pinkie looked down, abashed and quietly said “I don’t know what you eat”, Hunter slowly looked at her and said “anything but grass and leaves, cupcakes would be great”, Pinkie reacted, jumping up like a rocket and disappearing into a pot plant. Hunter watched the pot plant where she had disappeared, hoping she wouldn’t come back, and when she didn’t immediately appear; he rolled over and fell back asleep. Hunter woke for the second time that day, to the delectable smell of pancakes, he burst out of bed, and ran into the kitchen, before shouting “thankyou somebody, they have pancakes”, Fluttershy smiled and laughed, “oh, so you like these” she asked, to which her son responded “like them, there the greatest thing ever, please tell me you guys have maple syrup”. Fluttershy frowned, but then smiled and said “no, but we do have zap apple jam”, Hunter almost frowned, but then smiled brightly and said “ok”. He soon found himself in front of a large stack of pancakes, spreading rainbow coloured jam on them, and he took a bite, and fell in love. After the breakfast, Hunter dressed in another pair of clothes, consisting of khaki pants and a t-shirt, which Rarity had given him, and they walked to the Ponyville library, where the party was being held. They entered the tree, and Hunter found himself surrounded by curious ponies, who were introducing themselves and their kin, asking if he can really talk, as Pinkie Pie had told them all about him, but they were still sceptical. Hunter acted calmly answering questions as easily as he could; but he was surprised when his adopted mother hid behind her mane, and behind him. She soon got over this when she saw Rainbow Dash and Scootaloo approaching, cooing at how comfortable they were in each other’s company. Rainbow Dash spoke to Hunter first “hey kid, sorry I didn’t introduce myself the other day, I just had something I had to do, I’m Rainbow Dash, by the way”, and offered her hoof. Hunter didn’t notice, as through the whole conversation, he had been looking at Scootaloo, love hearts for pupils in his eyes, Scootaloo, was unaware, as at that moment, her and Sweetie Belle were talking, waiting for Apple Bloom, and the rest of her family to arrive. Rainbow Dash noticed the hearts and nudged Fluttershy, asking “does he know how obvious he’s being?” Fluttershy responded “oh my no, I don’t think he does, I had better tell him”. Luckily at this point, Spike came over, and walked in front of Hunter, snapping him out of his love struck daze, while Spike just laughed, well aware of what he had just interrupted. Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash talked about raising kids, something neither knew much about, although Fluttershy was the more experienced of the two, having raised animals before, so she was offering advice on the right diet for a young filly. They discussed school, and how Spike would probably be attending to, which pleased them both as they knew the mature minded young dragon would probably be a boon to their respective children, but also about homework, at which point they agreed, that they had no real knowledge of how intelligent theirs was. Hunter found himself approached by a green mare, which walked up to him and introduced herself as Lyra Heartstrings, before asking him about his hands, and how much of a benefit he found them in everyday life. Hunter looked at her, wondering why she would care, but was just told upon asking that she was curious, just before another mare approached him, introduced herself as Bon Bon, and then apologised, before dragging Lyra away. Hunter just thought ‘well, that was strange’ before these thoughts were interrupted by Spike asking “hey why don’t you see if we can get a giant game of chasey going, I’ll get all the other kids together, you ask the crusaders”, Hunter agreed and went over to talk to the two fillies in front of him. Meanwhile, Fluttershy had been approached by Twilight, who much to Rainbow Dash’s and Fluttershy’s surprise, kissed Fluttershy on the mouth, and nuzzled next to her, before saying “I’m so glad you made it”. Rainbow Dash reacted, shouting “hubbuzawa”, before starting to fall, only to be caught by Twilight’s magic, the lavender unicorn then told her cyan friend, “Fluttershy, Luna and I, are dating now, you are happy for us, and wish us well”. Rainbow Dash, nodded her head, and so Twilight released her magic, once she had, she and Fluttershy found themselves wrapped in a hug by their crazy pink friend, who had seen them kiss from across the floor. Applejack walked over, her entire family, apart from Granny Smith, having just arrived, “why’s she huggin them?” she asked Rainbow Dash, who said “Twilight and Fluttershy are dating, and just admitted it, I think their also with Luna, awesome right”. The orange earth pony looked at her four friends, before asking “so where’s Rarity then, ah’m sure she’s got somein to say about this”, and found herself accosted by that very mare, having walked on this situation after a quick visit to the little fillies room to freshen up. The purple and white mare said “I assure you my dear Applejack, that I have been aware of this relationship since its very fruition, a mare like me can tell these things, and I of course approve of it, such a wonderful grouping”, and nodded sagely. Twilight and Fluttershy smiled at their close friends, before Twilight turned to her special somepony and said “see I told you they would be happy for us, don’t you feel silly now”, the pink and yellow Pegasus nodded her head, which earned her another kiss from Twilight. Hunter in the intervening time had garnered the courage to ask Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle if they wanted to play, they accepted the offer, and they invited Apple Bloom to come, bumping into her as they were headed outside and she was headed inside. They all headed back outside, noticing the Sun was high in the sky, perfect for chasey, right before their view, apart from Hunter’s was blocked by a large red earth pony. Hunter put out his hand, and introduced himself, before giving the red stallion a chance to talk, Applebloom smiled and said “Hunter, you silly billy, this is mah brother Big Macintosh, or Big Mac, for short”, the red pony agreed by saying “eeyup”, and nodded his greeting, before side stepping them and heading inside. The four tweens went to the nearby park, where they found the rest of the towns young ponies, and Spike. The kids all played hide and go seek chasey for a while, with Hunter hiding in tree’s, as he had found the only ponies that could get up there with him where Pegasus, and even then they didn’t really like to as the often got stuck. However, Hunter found that it was impossible for him to outrun even the smallest of ponies, their quadrupedal form, easily beating his bipedal, but he found, as he was thinner, he could hide much easier, especially with his tree climbing abilities. He did notice however, that there were two ponies he hadn’t been introduced to not playing with them, but rather where looking at him with disgust, something he found very confusing, as he done nothing he could think of to disgust anyone. Curious Hunter approached them, and said “hi there I'm Hunter” before asking “why aren’t you guys playing, come on, it’s a lot of fun”. The pink, diamond tiara cutiemark having one spoke first, “you are the most disgusting creature I have ever seen, why would I want to play with you? And what’s this I hear about your mother being Fluttershy, how does that even work?” Hunter blushed, and said “oh, she’s not my real mother, she died when I was younger, and so when I came to Equestria, Fluttershy adopted me, which was very nice of her”. She spoke again, laughing cruelly “so you’re an orphan, hanging out with all the other orphans, Apple Bloom, whose parents, died in a farming accident, that baby dragon, Sweetie Belle, who lives with her sister so often she may as well not have parents, and Scootaloo, who we all know lived in an orphanage, oh it’s just too funny”, Hunter had been getting angrier and angrier as the little pink pony spoke, but when she mentioned Scootaloo, he snapped, and yelled. He ran at her and picked her up, actually surprised by how light she was, and hung her upside down by her rear hoof in one hand, and then he slapped her with his other, straight on her face, and said “apologise right now, and I’ll let you go”. He heard behind him, screaming, and looked around, finding himself much higher above the ground than he usually was. He looked down, and saw that he was at about the same height as his father; he looked at the little pony in his hand, which was growing smaller by the minute, before realising he was actually growing, she wasn’t shrinking. She looked at him with fear in her eyes, and started sobbing crying out “I'm sorry, really I am, please, let me go”. Hunter was shocked by what was happening, and dropped her, forgetting how high of the ground he was now holding her, and was somewhat relieved, when, on hitting the ground, the earth pony got straight back up and ran off, screaming, her spoon cutiemark having compadre racing after her. He calmed down, wondering what was going on, but soon found himself shrinking back down again. Spike and the cutiemark crusaders raced up to him, the rest of the children having raced off to their parents, and shouted “what was that?” Hunter looked at them and said “I have no idea”. Twilight heard screaming, and she and the rest of the Elements of Harmony raced outside, prepared to face whatever was causing it. They were shocked to see, in the park, Hunter’s head poking above the trees, in a perfect rendition of a larger version of him, not older, just Hunter, multiplied in size. Fluttershy gasped, and raced over to her son, who even then was beginning to shrink, while the rest of them just looked on in awe, as fillies and colts raced past them, heading for their parents. Applejack was the first to speak “Twilight, please tell me that’s some sorta ability that humans have, cause otherwise I have no idea what in tarnation, is goin on”, Twilight shook her head and replied “I don’t think so Applejack, but I really hope so, because the only thing we know that can do that, is encased in stone in the Canterlot gardens”. The other mares gaped at this, and then they all followed after Fluttershy, going as fast as they could. In the Canterlot gardens, a statue, that had been placed there months ago, was rocking back and forth, back and forth, until finally, it over balanced, and smashed into the floor. Inside the statue, was a strange mismatched creature of about 5 foot, which upon waking from its long slumber, stood up, and yawned, before looking around at its surroundings. Discord looked around himself, and thought ‘everything looks the same, it couldn’t have been more than a few months at most, wow, I expected to be in there for at least another couple thousand years’, he began speaking aloud to himself, saying “I think this calls for a celebration”, and clicked his claws. When nothing happened, Discord, didn’t realise at first, and looked at his paw, expecting it to contain chocolate milk, he eyed it curiously, and clicked his claws again, and again nothing happened. Discord the began using different magicians poses, and nothing happened, then held up a stick and shouted “alakasam”, and nothing happened, he folded his arms in front of himself, and nodded, but nothing happened, finally he clapped his paw and claw together, as loudly and as hard as he could, all he got was sore appendages. He was confused for the first time, in a very long time, and spoke to himself saying “I guess I had better go see those really boring princesses”, just before a whole phalanx of Celestia’s royal guard arrived in his little clearing, along with both of the princesses. Discord looked at their angry faces and realised, without his magic, they could really hurt him, before holding out his paw and his claw, shrugging and saying “Lulu, Tia, I assure you my dears, I have no idea what’s going on”.
And Sleeping in the Middle of a Summer Afternoon-Chapter TwoFluttershy was cantering towards Hunter, coming to reassure him, when she saw two young fillies racing past her, Diamond Tiara and Silver Spoon, if she remembered correctly. This only made her speed up, flapping her wings to increase her speed. However she was soon surpassed by the self-titled Equestria’s Greatest Flyer, flying straight towards Hunter, a look of deep seated fear in her eyes. She flew up, and then descended downwards, aiming at Hunter. Her speed increased, a conical barrier building around her, until she broke through, and created a rainboom, different colours spreading out from her body. With this increase in speed she hit Hunter, making him fly away from his four friends, before landing in the dirt, Rainbow Dash straddling him, and hitting him repeatedly shouting “get away from my daughter Discord”. By this time Fluttershy had reached the two, and pulled Rainbow Dash of Hunter, before picking her up and throwing her away from him, yelling “get away from my son, he’s not Discord, leave him alone”. Fluttershy eyed Rainbow Dash as she got up, the cyan mare staring right back at her, a similar look of anger, mixed with fear, on their faces. Hunter stood up, surprisingly uninjured by the attack by Rainbow Dash, he say the rest of his mother’s friends racing up behind Rainbow Dash, before he found himself surrounded by a purple glow, Twilight’s magic holding him aloft in the air. Fluttershy turned around, noticing Hunter’s position above her, she looked back at her friend’s and said “I don’t care what you think, he’s my son, he is not Discord, and I won’t have you do anything to him”. Applejack, an expression of fear plastered on her face, responded “look honey, we don’t know what’s going on, but how can yah be sure, I mean, you saw just as much as we did, and it’s mighty suspicious”. Fluttershy looked at her son, suspended in the air above her, before turning back to her friends and saying “I just know I can trust him, please believe me, I just know I can”, and looked at them. Her friends considered her, before smiling, and walking up to her, Rainbow Dash as well, and said collectively “of course we believe you”, and hugged her. Hunter started laughing, which caused them all to look at him confused, he responded “sorry but this is hilarious, you guys are all happy, while I'm just floating up here, it’s kinda funny, you got to admit”. Twilight smiled at him, and released him, dropping him the few feet to the ground. Spike and the Cutiemark Crusaders ran up, the small dragon clutching a letter in his claws. “Twilight” he cried “the princesses are coming, along with a guest, their bringing the Elements of Harmony. Suddenly, there was a huge flash, and the two princesses, a smaller Discord, and a phalanx of guards all appeared in front of them, next to the tree library. Twilight called out to them, and they turned towards the meadow, before walking quickly over. “Hello Twilight”, the two princesses said simultaneously, Celestia with a motherly tone, Luna with something more suggestive. Pinkie shouted, “Yay Discord” and looked up at the sky hopefully, until Discord said “sorry Pinkie, but it appears I am no longer the controller of chaotic magic”. Celestia continued, her younger sister letting her talk “Twilight, Discord has lost his chaos magic, something else is now in possession of it, we need to find out who or what it is, and capture it immediately”. Twilight looked at her hooves, before straightening up and saying “I don’t think we need to look very far, in fact, I’m fairly sure I know exactly who it is”, and turned, pointing her hoof at the now standing Hunter, who smiled, not really sure what they were talking about. Luna reacted, saying what they were all thinking, “oh no, please don’t say we have to capture him, I like him”, Hunter was startled at this. He started crying “I don’t want to go to jail, I know what I did was bad, but I didn’t mean to, honest”, Celestia looked at her student and then the rest of the surrounding individuals, before saying “I think we both have some explaining to do, especially Hunter, and Discord”. The 5 friends explained how Hunter had been interacting with them recently, Fluttershy and Twilight having the most to say on the subject, with Spike often interjecting. Discord then explained how he had been released, caught, and all before being given anything to eat, or drink, which he thought was pretty rough, the last bit said pointedly at Celestia and Luna. Hunter, meanwhile, had been looking curiously at the draconequus, so he asked, once everybody else had finished, “So what’s that” and pointed at Discord. Discord responded, “I, my dear boy, am a dragon-pony, mixed with other creatures, among whom are goats, griffons and lions, but that is not what matters, what is important, is that I am your predecessor concerning the holder of chaos magic, and so I must teach you how to control it, if you are to survive this at all”, and nodded before cackling with glee at the concerned look on everyone else’s face. Twilight looked at him accusingly, before saying “why would you want to do that, not only has Hunter taken your magic, something I must assume you’re annoyed by, but your evil, you tried to destroy my friendship and Equestria”. Discord looked hurt, he responded “Twilight, I assure you, I wanted to hurt nopony, and I am sorry about what I did to your friendship, but look at it from my perspective, I had been encased in stone for thousands of years, and so I just had to stop the only thing that could hurt me, which was you and your friends, sure I had fun doing it, but that’s only because I was really bored, I mean come on, I am millions of years old, you think this is the first time I have taken control of Equestria, concerning the young, human was it? It’s not merely a matter of wanting to help him, I need to help him, otherwise he could end up destroying everything, myself included, now that I am mortal. Please understand this has to be done”. Everybody turned to look at Hunter, who was looking very perplexed, and asked “I’m not really sure I understand what’s going on, at all”. Fluttershy just shook her head sadly, and said “Hunter, I really have to something to tell you”, and began to explain what had just happened, as well as their previous history with Discord. Hunter’s face changed from confusion, to shock, to confusion, to happiness, to confusion again, before he smiled dumbly, and said “ok”, even though, everything, was not okay. Spike nudged Scootaloo, who was standing next to him, and whispered “I really don’t think he understands”, Scootaloo looked at him suspiciously and whispered back, “And you do?” Discord continued “now I believe I’m going to need somewhere to stay, I vote Pinkie’s house, as I think her small amount of chaos magic will be fun to be around, even if she is now more powerful than myself”. Twilight gasped “what do you mean her small amount of chaos magic?” Discord laughed, and responded “oh yes, well, many, many years ago, I grated the Pie family a small amount of my magic for a boon they had provided me, as well as Pinkie’s mother’s family, the Cake family, who also provided me a boon, and when they combined to create Pinkie Pie, well she got double, and so she can use an actually fairly decent amount of chaos magic”. Twilight was immensely confused, but decided to query the first of many questions, asking “What were the boons”, Discord chuckled again and said “isn’t it obvious, the Pies invented pie, although how they ended up gem farming I’ll never know, and the Cakes invented cake, two of the greatest things ever, although you should have seen what I did for the Chocolate Milks”. Pinkie began speaking “oh my Celestia, me and Discord as roomies, oh this is going to be so cool, the food we could make, the parties we could have, and the pranks, the pranks” and then collapsed, the overwhelming awesomeness of being roommates with Discord getting to her. Celestia looked at her surrounding subjects, Discord now included in this, and said “alright, well, you shall tell the towns people that Discord escaped, which caused Hunter’s increase in size, but we subdued him, which resulted in the loss of his power, and now he lives here in Ponyville, as there was nowhere else for him to live, now that’s over, I assume that Hunter should get back to playing, your only a child once”, she finished the last part, sadly. Twilight and her friends gasped, while Hunter and the other younger ponies and dragon just ran off, content to try to look for something to do, with the few hours of daylight remaining. Luna looked accusingly at Discord, and said “Discord, if you so much as touch one of my loves, I will end you”, Discord gasped, and said “loves”, Twilight and Fluttershy blushed, causing Discord to laugh loudly, and say “oh this is going to be so much fun”. With that, Celestia and Luna left, along with the phalanx of guards, disappearing in a flash of magic. Twilight turned to Pinkie, and said “you better not have known it was chaos magic that allowed you to do those things”, Pinkie turned, smiled, and said “of course I did Twilight, I just thought it would be to eggheady to explain everything to you, so I didn’t, now I got to go plan a party”, and then she dashed off, grabbing Discord, leaving a very angry Twilight in her wake. Fluttershy went over to her mare friend, and comforted her, recognising the signs of a Twilight freak out, Spike noticed from across the meadow and shouted “she’s gonna blow” and then ran off chuckling with his friends. Twilight smiled evilly, and then her horn glowed, and she vanished. Hunter and Fluttershy walked into town, aiming for a gingerbread house, as Fluttershy had said to Hunter that “if he wanted a guitar, he had to apologise to Diamond Tiara first, even if he would have to lie to do it”, so he had agreed, but only if they stopped at Pinkie’s bakery first, as he had been told some very good things about it. They walked in, and where surprised to find Pinkie Pie tied up hanging from the ceiling, with Twilight lying dazed underneath her, covered in cupcakes, Discord was leaning on a counter, throwing a cupcake up and down in his paw, much like a baseball player at the pitch, and the Cakes where holding each other in a corner, crying softly. Fluttershy looked at Twilight, under the cupcakes, and then up at Pinkie, before flying up to her, and untying her friend, who laughed and dashed over to Twilight and said “well, I thought it would work, but oh well, it was fun anyway”, and then ran off to her room, Discord chuckling and walking after her. Twilight started getting up, asking “what happened, I just remember asking Pinkie for a demonstration, and then, this,” and looked around her, the Cakes still sobbing quietly in the corner. Fluttershy responded “come on Twilight, I think we better leave”, Twilight nodded, muttered sorry to the Cakes, and walked out with her marefriend and Hunter, who was just looking around him, dumbfounded, at the gingerbread house. They walked towards Diamond Tiara’s house, a large mansion near the outskirts of Ponyville, and knocked on the door, somewhat surprised when it was answered by a butler, almost immediately on knocking. Filthy Rich walked over to them, after they had been let in, somewhat surprised to see the three, as the last he had heard, Hunter had attacked his daughter, supposedly without provocation, and Twilight and Fluttershy, had been trying to stop him. He was angry to say the least; his daughter had hidden herself under the bed in her room, with her friend Silver Spoon, and wouldn’t let anybody in, all because of the strange creature in front of him, who he had met, if only briefly, and thought he was a nice enough young man, until he heard what he had done to his daughter, but ever the salesman, he approached smiling. Hunter spoke up and said “hello Mr Rich, sir, I am here to apologise to your daughter, for my actions this afternoon, it was wrong of me to hurt her, and I feel bad about it”. Filthy smiled reassuringly and said “ok son, she’s just upstairs, Jeeves will show you the way”, and pointed at the butler, who nodded, and led the young human upstairs. Filthy turned two the two adult mares in front of him and asked “can humans do that growing thing all the time”, Fluttershy blushed and said “oh no, Mr Rich, he was affected by Discord, who had escaped, but it’s alright presently, we took his magic away, and now he’s living with Pinkie”. Mr Rich smiled, nodded, trying to keep his cool at the information he had just heard, before remembering the other question he wanted to ask “you wouldn’t happen to know why Hunter attacked my daughter would you, it’s just, she says she did nothing to provoke him, but I don’t think I believe her”. Twilight replied “it seems your daughter was, supposedly, laughing at Hunter and his friends for being orphans”, she replied, slightly angrily, Filthy’s smile ran from his face, replaced by one of anger, he looked at Twilight, and yelled “she did what”, and then turned and raced upstairs. Hunter meanwhile, had just made it to outside Diamond Tiara’s room, when he heard somepony shout “she did what”, and then the sound of hooves going on marble flooring, he turned towards the stairs, just in time to see Filthy Rich race up from the stairs. Filthy slowed down, walked over to his daughter’s door, and turned to Hunter, and said “young colt, I am very sorry for how my daughter treated you, there is no need for you to apologise, I think you should just leave, as I have to have a serious talk with my daughter”, before pushing his daughter’s door open, and saying “that goes for you to silver spoon, I think you should go home”. The grey and white filly raced out from the bed, and disappeared down the stairs, while Hunter walked slowly off, unsure what had just happened, but happy he didn’t have to apologise, as he really wasn’t looking forward to it. The three left the mansion, headed towards the town’s music store, Fluttershy thought that although Hunter hadn’t actually apologised, he had been going to, which was good enough. They entered the store, which was shaped like a huge violin, causing a small bell to chime. Hunter was mildly surprised when Lyra, the green mare from earlier walked over to them, from behind the counter, and smiled brightly when she saw him. “oh my Celestia, I bet your here to buy an instrument, ooh what is it, wait let me guess, it’s a string instrument, I'm going to go with, the guitar, yeah that’s right, I'm sure of it, well their over in that room, let me show you, their my second favourite instrument, after the lyre, of course”, and pointed to the back, before leading the way. Hunter followed the unicorn, while Fluttershy and Twilight looked around the store, as neither had any experience with instruments, so were a bit overwhelmed by their surroundings. Hunter and Lyra entered the guitar room, he didn’t see any familiar brands, but what he did see in the way of guitars was impressive, he walked over to an electric semi-hollow, similar to his own on earth and picked it up. He liked the weight, heavy, but as he had been always told, he was still growing, and said so, finding the neck was big, with the same reason as the weight behind it, he played a blues riff, and smiled, this was something he could do. Lyra smiled back, slightly crazed, at him, and said “wow that was good, who teaches you, oh wait I bet you don’t have a teacher yet, well, I teach instruments sometimes, at least I used to at the music college in Canterlot, before I met Bon Bon, and we moved here, so I volunteer”. Hunter looked up at the mare, his attention moving from the guitar to her, and said “you really seem excited, is something wrong?” Lyra replied “no nothing’s wrong, everything is fine, I'm just really excited”. Hunter nodded, accepting the explanation, and walked over to the amps, and found he himself out of his depth, as they were magically powered, Lyra noticed this and said, “well if you like the semi-hollow, I would recommend this one, because it would really boost the rockafilly sound”, and pointed to a fairly large amp with some vacuum tubes poking out of the top. Hunter nodded, accepting the musician’s judgement, and turned to his mother, and said “I found the guitar and the amp, oh, and a teacher”, before indicating Lyra, Fluttershy smiled and agreed, before they walked back to the counter, and bought the equipment, which they were assured would be dropped off the tomorrow, as the working day was almost over. They arranged for Hunter to come for an hour every Wednesday, starting that week, after school. Hunter said goodbye to Lyra, and thanked her for her help, before he, Fluttershy and Twilight walked back to the library. Hunter was astounded when, once they were inside the library, he and Spike, were presented with their school books, a large assortment of maths, science, geography and Equestrian, both exclaimed their annoyance at this, especially when they were told they had missed half the school year, and so had a lot of catching up to do. Fluttershy and Twilight smiled at each other, and then dropped a bombshell on the two young boys, saying, “Were going to move in together”. Fluttershy continued “Hunter, you and I are moving in with Twilight and Spike, there’s plenty of room here, so we’ll fit in easily, and I’ll just spend the day with my animal friends, if they have anything serious happen at night, I will just get them to send a messenger bird, and Angel can look after the cabin, his family can move in, which I’m sure he’ll love”, Twilight nodded, and took the figurative talking stick from her special somepony, saying “so you two are going to have a room together, and Fluttershy and I are going to have a room together, I’ll manifest some rooms when you move in, later tonight”. Hunter and Spike looked at each other, and high-fived, shouting “woo hoo, brothers”, their school books long since forgotten. The rest of that afternoon was spent moving the small amount of belongings that Hunter and Fluttershy would immediately need, as anything else could easily be gotten later, since Fluttershy was planning to return to her cabin during the day. Hunter and Spike moved into their room, which was now in what would be considered the attic in a normal house, while Fluttershy moved into Twilight’s room, which now had a wall and a door, for privacy. Spike and Hunter lay on the bunk bed that Twilight had made extend from the tree, and smiled happily. Both realised simultaneously that they had yet to have dinner, so raced down to the kitchen, where they saw Twilight and Fluttershy, working together to create dinner, a small salad, with dressing. Hunter became conscious of the fact that he had no meat, but then saw a large cooler box, lying on the counter. Twilight saw him looking at the box and said “oh Hunter, I forgot to say, I ordered the meat yesterday from the griffin in canterlot, and it just arrived in town, on the train”. Hunter looked in, and gasped, he saw bacon, and some kind of steaks and sausages, hopefully not cow, as well as some white meat. He was very happy with what he saw, and was about to begin cooking it, when he saw his new family looking at him, slightly disdainfully. “I’ll just wait for you guys to finish, by the way, have you got any potatoes”, Twilight nodded, and then herself and Fluttershy walked into the living room, and began to eat their salad. Hunter looked at Spike, who was looking back at him, expectantly, “what” Hunter queried, while taking some steak out of the box, which he found was ridiculously cold, but put that down to magic. Spike laughed and said “you’re going to need me to light the oven, what you think you could just heat it up yourself? Besides, I want to try meat, and whatever you’re doing with the potatoes”, Hunter nodded, pointed at the oven, and said “light her up”, and laughed. Spike did just that, and lit up the oven, lighting its coals. Hunter placed the steaks in a pan, and then prepared a pot full of oil. Spike smelt the cooking meat, and grinned, finding himself surprisingly attracted to it, before looking and the heating pot of oil and remarking “what, are you making hay fries, I thought you couldn’t eat them”. Hunter looked at him confused, before shaking his head and saying “nah better I'm making potato fires”, and began cutting up the potatoes. Eventually both he and Spike found themselves looking at plates of medium rare steak, and chips, with Hunter remarking, “I just wish we had some tomato sauce”, Spike laughed and said “why didn’t you ask, I’ll go get it”, and walked into the kitchen, returning moments later with a bottle of tomato sauce. They sat down to eat, Spike remarking on the deliciousness, of both the meat, which he adored, and the chips, which he convinced Fluttershy and Twilight to try, who both agreed that they would really like to find out how to cook them. Hunter meanwhile, was tucking into his steak with gusto, having been desperate for red meat for days, but not wanting to say so, fearful of what it might cause to occur, he was happy that he had given Spike a whole new type of food to try, and that he was enjoying it, even if he had fire ruby sprinkles on it first, which was apparently “like chilli powder, only hotter”. Once they had finished, Twilight and Fluttershy had gone upstairs, muttering about “breaking in new sheets”, and not wanting “to be disturbed”. Hunter and spike had ice-cream, before brushing their teeth and going to bed themselves, excited for their first day of school in Ponyville, but tired from their experiences that day. Celestia sat in her study, crying, looking at pictures of past students, as well as friends, confidants and compadres that decorated the walls of the room, in between numerous bookcases, and a fire place, which contained a roaring fire. Luna walked in to the study, having heard her sister crying while walking past, and wondering what was wrong. She asked that, to which Celestia responded “Hunter”. Luna was confused further and asked “sister, I do not understand why you are so sad, Discord is defeated, and in his place a child has gained the chaos magic, a child who is being raised by the represented Element of Kindness, what about this situation makes you so unhappy as to cry?” Celestia rubbed her eyes with her hooves, blinking away tears before saying “Luna, don’t you see, this poor child, through no fault of his own, has been given the same deplorable gift given to us by the moon and the sun respectively, by his new powers, the gift of immortality, he, like us, will watch his friends, family and loves grow old and die, while nothing will occur to him beyond the point where he is at his perfect age, when he will stop growing”. Luna started crying herself, and walked over to Celestia, and hugged her sister before saying “oh that poor, poor child”. So drop us a line, say what you like/dislike, how you think I’m doing, you know, any advice you want to give, also if you have any ideas how chapter three has 110 views, and 4 and 5 have 118, please tell.
